


Double Trouble

by MagratJ (Sangerin), Sangerin



Category: Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, Star Trek: Voyager
Genre: Crossover, Gen, Mirror Universe, Original Character(s)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-02-08
Updated: 2013-02-08
Packaged: 2017-11-28 14:53:36
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 23,764
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/675633
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/MagratJ, https://archiveofourown.org/users/Sangerin/pseuds/Sangerin
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Well, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore."</p><p>Tilly glared at her. "Call me Toto, and I swear I will kill you."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Double Trouble

**Author's Note:**

> Acknowledgements and thanks: to LauraJo for technical advice, Holodiction Odyssey 2001 for a heck of a lot of inspiration, and in particular, the partying Klingons (Bob O’Reilly and JG Hertzler), just because.

"Tilly, no."

"Why not Kit?"

"I can’t do it, that’s why."

"Yes, you can! In fact, I reckon you’re the only person on the ship who could."

"I don’t know about that."

"Well, I do."

Lieutenants Arvina Matilda Watson and Caitlyn McBride were walking across semi-arid terrain on the latest planet that Voyager had come across in the never-ending search for supplies. It wasn’t that Voyager was short on them, but rather they would take whatever they could get whenever they could get it. Tilly looked at her tricorder, and indicated towards a small hill.

"I’m getting some odd readings, let’s check it out."

"Okay. But the answer is still no."

"Come on Kit, it’ll be fun. Why won’t you?"

"Look, it’s one thing to convince yourself you believe what you are singing, but it is another to convince everyone else."

Tilly looked after, confused. "No it’s not. Once you’ve convinced yourself, everyone will believe you. And I’ll help you out, you know that."

"Why can’t you find someone else?"

"There is no one else with the range."

"What about you?" Kit said, turning suddenly.

"Oh no. You know I don’t sing soprano on principle. Besides, firstly, I’m directing the damn thing, and secondly, I’m playing Katisha. Unless you want to play her?"

Kit pretended to think about it. "No, I think that role needs your talents."

Tilly looked at her as Kit moved off, wondering if that was an insult or not. "Seriously Kit, there is no one else I can ask. It’ll be a laugh. I’m planning on rewriting half the lyrics to suit us, so I’ll need your help with that anyway."

"But Tilly, Yum-Yum?"

"Kit, I can’t imagine you as anyone else."

Kit went to glare back at her friend, when something caught her eye. She looked down into the valley that they had just come across. Unlike the surrounding area, the valley was a lush green, all variety of plants flourishing. But that was not what had caught her eye. Tilly quickly joined her in looking at the unusual site.

At the bottom of this unusual valley was a stone circle, standing upright. The area in the middle of the stone shimmered, as if it were water rippling. The stone itself was raised up on a platform.

"Wow," Tilly said, as she too stood in awe. "What do you think it is?"

"No idea Til, absolutely no idea."

"Let’s take a closer look."

Before Kit could register a complaint or objection, Tilly was halfway down the hill. She groaned inwardly, hitting her commbadge.

"McBride to Kim."

"Kim here. What’s up, Kit?" Harry’s voice came through.

"We’ve found something that you have got to see."

"What is it?"

"Don’t know yet. It’s an artefact of some sort. I’m betting the Captain will want to take a look at this."

"Okay, I’m on my way. Kim out."

Kit quickly followed Tilly down the hill.

"You know something?" Tilly said as they approached the artefact. "It kind of reminds me of the Guardian of Forever. Except that this is more circular. And doesn’t show pictures of other times and places."

"It also isn’t speaking," Kit commented. "These reading are off the scale though. Through that," she struggled for a word, "Portal, I suppose, are all kinds of anomalous temporal and subspace readings." Kit examined her tricorder more closely, determined to make some sense out of the jumbled readings.

Tilly continued on a visual examination, walking around the base of the monument. "There is some sort of inscription on the stone, but I think we’ve got Buckley’s of ever figuring out what it says. I thought the Oneri had said that no one had ever lived on this planet."

"Maybe this is why." Kit said, a smile tugging at her lips.

"The Oneri equivalent of ghosts and bogey men? That’s going to look good on our report. ‘Given all the evidence gathered, it seems that the reason the Oneri have failed to colonise this planet is not, as they said, because they don’t need to, but because they are all scared to death by this really weird stone thingy, which has a really cool rippling effect.’"

Kit laughed. "Like you would hand in a report like that."

"I did once, actually. Truth is, it’s not worth the effort if no one reads it before you’re made to rewrite it. Hey, you know, I just had an idea."

"Oh no."

"We could use something like this for when the Mikado arrives in Titipu. He can walk through it." Tilly began to get excited, and ran towards the portal. As she took a step up, she tripped, her tricorder falling out of its pocket, and landing with a clank beside her. As she bent to pick up the instrument, she noticed that somehow it had been activated.

Harry had just reached the valley, and had stopped to look at the unusual site when he saw Tilly trip. He was about to start his way down when he saw the tricorder emit some sort of beam, what it was he wasn’t sure. The beam hit the substance that shimmered at the centre of the portal. The surface seemed to contract and then expand. As it finally settled, a bright light burst from it, blinding the operations officer for a moment. When he could look into the valley again, Kit and Tilly were gone.

~~*~~

Tilly blinked, trying to regain some vision. The noise around her was almost deafening. She could hear the whirrings of a ship, although it felt too open to be a ship – a space station then. All around her, people were moving in the dim light that existed here. There were a couple of Klingons fighting not far from where she and Kit stood. Kit . . ."Kit, you here?"

"Yeah . . . I think. What happened?"

"No idea."

It was then that the atmosphere hit the pair. Wherever it was that they were, it was not pleasant. There was a feeling of cruelty in the air, which afterwards, neither would be able to explain. Kit was the first to speak.

"Well, we are definitely not in Kansas anymore."

Tilly glared at her. "Call me Toto, and I swear I will kill you."

The pair closely examined their surroundings for a few moments, trying to get their bearings.

"I think I know where we are," Tilly said. "This is Deep Space 9."

"No it’s not." Kit countered. "This is Terok Nor."

"In that case," said Tilly, calmly, "We need to do something about these uniforms. They’ll stand out too much in this place." Looking around them, they noticed a couple of worn out blankets lying in a heap in the corner. Tilly picked them up. "These will do for now," she said.

Wrapped up, and vaguely disguised, they remained huddled, out of the way of passers by. They needed answers, and quickly.

"We have two choices." Tilly said, trying to desperately remember everything she had read about the mirror universe. "One, we head down towards what is the ore processing unit. That’s where the most humans are."

"I don’t like that idea." Kit said glumly.

"Good, neither did I. We have to make our way to the docking ring. Maybe we can stowaway on a ship and get out of here."

"Is that a wise choice? This is where we landed."

"True, but I don’t think we’ll survive long."

"What if we get stopped?"

"I’ll handle that. Just remember, we’re Terrans, and we’re subservient. Act it."

Kit nodded. Tilly looked out, and then started out, signalling to Kit to follow.

They had made it perhaps halfway, and Tilly was starting to feel like they would make it, but Kit couldn’t shake the feeling of dread in her stomach. As they rounded a corner that would take them to the upper pylon, they heard an all too familiar voice.

"Stop!" it commanded.

Tilly looked up, but kept her blanket tightly wrapped around her face, her heart sinking, and her mind already racing. However, neither she nor Kit were prepared for the reality of looking Seska in the face. Seska as a full Cardassian, dressed in complete Cardassian military uniform. The emblem on her uniform all but confirmed that the two Lieutenants were in the mirror universe.

"What are you two doing so far from ore processing?" she demanded.

Tilly bowed her head again, trying to get her mind around what she had just seen. Tom Paris was standing right behind her staring at Tilly as though she were a ghost. He was fairly clean and well dressed. Which, in this universe, could probably mean only one thing.

"The Intendant sent us." Tilly said quickly, stumbling her words on purpose.

"Sent you where? How did you get so clean?"

"It was the Intendant's doing. She said we needed to be clean for who it is we are seeing."

Kit was trying very hard not to gag as she realised just what it was that Tilly was implying.

"I see. And who have you been sent to see?"

"She chose not to tell us, ma’am. She never does."

"I see. Be on your way then." She waved them on as she and Tom continued on their way. "At least your race is good for something," she said to Tom.

Kit and Tilly moved for a bit, then stopped, looking back in the direction that Seska and Tom had gone.

"That was just too weird." Tilly said.

"Agreed. I think running into the opposites of ourselves is going to be interesting."

"Oh, definitely. Remind me to write a very detailed report about it. Come on, we have to keep moving."

They made it to the docking ring without running into any more trouble. How they managed that, neither Kit nor Tilly really knew. They were congratulating themselves and trying to work out how to find a ship that was moderately safe, when Kit saw B’Elanna coming towards them. She was in full Klingon regalia, though she still appeared to be half-human, and from the look on her face, it was obvious that she was going to have words with the pair. Kit braced herself for another scene like that with Seska, and prayed that Tilly could handle it again.

"What are you two doing here?" This scenario was far too familiar - behind B’Elanna trailed Chakotay.

"The Intendant sent for us," said Tilly. Then she realised that B’Elanna was speaking softly, not authoritatively as Seska had.

Chakotay turned a hard glare on Tilly and Kit. "This wasn’t the rendezvous point. And you damn well know it, Kat."

B’Elanna didn’t let Chakotay continue. "Look. This isn’t the place for discussions. We’ve met up, now let’s get out of here. You know the drill." She jerked her head, indicating that they should follow her.

Not actually knowing the drill, Kit just did her best to look suitably penitent, as though B’Elanna was leading them to a punishment. And hoped that wasn’t where they were going. Tilly, too, assumed what she hoped was a downtrodden expression. But she’d been listening a little more to what this Chakotay and B’Elanna had been saying, and was pretty confident that they had found a group of rebels. Then again, she reminded herself, it wasn’t a good idea to get too confident when you’re dealing with a mirror universe.

They boarded a ship and, as soon as they were through the airlock, Chakotay rounded on Tilly and Kit.

"Okay - what was going on down there? We weren’t supposed to meet in the Docking Ring. That was way too dangerous! And why are you wearing those clothes - you stick out a mile, even with the blankets!" His attention was diverted from them by B’Elanna, who was trying to make a hasty exit. "Where the hell do you think you’re going, Torres?"

"To get out of these damn clothes, where do you think? And don’t forget, I saved our butts down there."

"I don’t forget anything, Torres. Get going. Janeway will have a job for you, I’m sure." Tilly and Kit exchanged glances at the mention of Janeway, but when B’Elanna left, Chakotay’s full attention was focussed on them again. He spoke in an almost conversational way, but there was a hint of a threat behind it. "So, tell me, Kat, Vina, what was going on back there?"

~~*~~

"Well done, Kat. You are certainly proving your worth."

"Thank you, Intendant. I do my best." She was currently doing her best to be ingratiating.

"You must thank Annika for me, too. Of course," the Intendant purred, "I’d be quite pleased to thank her myself, tonight."

"I will pass on your message, Intendant."

"That’s all, Kat." The Intendant waved a languid hand and Kat got herself out of the room as fast as she could. That woman! She gave Kat the creeps, mostly because of the possibility that at any stage, her languid manner could turn into a crazed killing spree.

"She was pleased." The blonde woman waiting outside the door didn’t ask. She merely stated a fact.

"Yes, Annika. The Intendant was pleased. She would like to thank you herself – she’ll be expecting you tonight."

"I’m looking forward to it," said Annika, speculatively. Her lips curled up slightly in the closest approximation of a smile the blonde ever seemed to manage. "It couldn’t have been a pleasant assignment for you, my dear," she said, lifting Kat’s chin and studying her face.

"I did what I had to do." Kat spoke shortly.

While the actual logistics of the assignment – infiltrating a resistance cell, gaining their trust, and informing on them to the Intendant’s chief of security – hadn’t been difficult, it had pitted her against an old adversary. An old adversary who hated Kat almost as much as Kat hated her.

"I know you did what was necessary," said Annika. Then her voice became hard. "But one doesn’t congratulate one’s slaves - even willing ones. Come - you have work to do. I intend to enjoy myself while we’re here. You’re going to be working in the Bar on the Promenade - keep your ears open. We need to find another job."

~~*~~

Chakotay had left Tilly and Kit alone, "To get their story straight," as he said. The two were more than grateful for the chance to pool their knowledge of where they were.

"Okay," said Kit, "so, when we left the Alpha Quadrant, there weren’t any rebels here. Dr Bashir and Major Kira reported that the Klingon/Cardassian/Bajoran alliance were in power."

"Yeah, but since then we got those messages through. Somewhere in there I remember reading some more information about this reality. After Kira and Bashir came back, the Terrans started a rebellion, and they took over the station."

"But they aren’t in control of the station now."

"Well, maybe the alliance got back in control?"

"That’s always a possibility. But we’ve got a bigger problem - how do we handle this?"

"Can we just tell them? If they know about our reality then they’ll understand."

Tilly shrugged. "Thing is, I’m not sure they do know. But come on, Kit - you’re the history buff! You can’t tell me you know nothing about all this!"

"No, but I don’t understand the new developments. If we could just get access to their computers…" Kit stood up, but Tilly stopped her.

"Kit, it’s not worth the risk. Look, they’re probably suspicious enough of us as it is. We’ve got to work out what to tell them."

"Tilly, this might sound weird, but how about telling the truth?"

A familiar voice spoke from the doorway. "Well, that certainly would be preferable." They turned to see Janeway standing there, all but draped over Chakotay. "So - are you two able to explain any of this yet?"

"I certainly hope they are," said Chakotay. He sat down and pulled Janeway down to sit on his lap. Kit was struggling to keep her jaw from hitting the floor, and Tilly had almost given up. Their astonishment did not amuse Chakotay. "Look. You two might be valuable to us, but that isn’t going to mean I’ll be any more lenient. You know how this ship is run - you follow the rules. Or else you can get off and try to survive on Terok Nor."

"Sorry, Chakotay," said Kit, "we’ll explain this as best we can."

But they weren’t going to get the chance. Harry Kim, or, at least, someone who, if he had a decent haircut and got rid of the leer, would resemble the Harry Kit knew, yelled through the door. "Chakotay!"

"What is it, Kim?" Chakotay asked the haggard young man, annoyed by the interruption.

"There’s just been an announcement that a member of the rebels has been captured by the Intendant. They gave the designation as Theta-109032."

Chakotay turned and stared at Tilly. "But that’s Vina’s number."

Tilly spoke quietly to Kit, "All right - you win. There’s no choice, now."

Kit spoke to Harry, who was loitering in the doorway. "You’re welcome to join us, you know."

He leered at her. "I might just do that - this could be interesting."

"Be careful, Kit," said Tilly quietly "He’s not the same person."

"You think I can’t see that?" said Kit, cringing as Harry caught her eye.

"I don’t just mean the hairstyle, Kit."

"Will you two just get on with it?" said Janeway. "My hair’s going grey just waiting for you!"

Tilly began. "What do you know about Captain Sisko?"

"All I know is, he’s gone off to talk to the Romulans," said Harry.

"No," said Chakotay. "He’s dead. Killed by the Alliance about a year ago."

Harry turned in surprise. "So, then who was the guy who got the Professor off the station? He looked pretty alive to the Vulcan. He saw him."

"Well, that Sisko came from…" Chakotay faltered, but Janeway had no compunctions.

"He came from an alternate reality - the one that got us into this mess in the first place."

"And so do we," said Tilly.

Kit picked up the story. "We don’t understand how we got here, and believe us, we’re grateful that you found us. I didn’t want to stay on Terok Nor any longer than I had to."

Harry took a long look at each of them. "So, you’re saying that you aren’t Kat? And you aren’t Vina? Despite the fact that you sure as hell look like them."

"Well, I’m usually called Kit, actually."

"But, you are Caitlyn McBride?" asked Janeway.

"Yes. Lieutenant JG on Voyager."

"Whatever. And you’re Arvina Watson?" Janeway asked Tilly.

"Arvina Matilda, if you have to use my full name. But I’m called Tilly."

Chakotay narrowed his eyes. "This is very strange."

"You think it isn’t strange for us?" asked Tilly. "The first thing that happened when we got here was that we bumped into someone who is dead in our reality, and here she was a full Cardassian, practically leading one of our friends on a leash."

Harry jumped out of his seat. "Well, this is just great! We think that we’ve got the key to taking over Terok Nor, and it turns out that she’s some wimp from another reality. And to top it all off, that ‘key’ is currently in one of the Intendant’s jail cells!"

"You mean, I’ve been captured by the Intendant?" asked Tilly.

"Wait up, Tilly," said Kit. "I want to get some history straight, first."

"Fine," said Janeway, disentangling herself from Chakotay. "Ask away."

"First of all, what year is this?"

"2371. Why?" asked Janeway.

Kit shook her head at Tilly before she replied. "No real reason. And you’re planning to take over Terok Nor."

"That’s right,’ said Harry. "That’s why we needed Vina. You’re no use at all to us!"

"Why do you need Vina?"

"She knows her way around the station," said Chakotay. "She’s got information on that place that will help us a lot."

"Well, maybe we can help you there. We were at Deep Space Nine before we left on our mission. Maybe Tilly and I don’t know as much about the place as Vina, but we can find our way around."

"I’d like to get one thing straight first," said Chakotay. "Why did you come with Torres and I so easily?"

"I can answer that one," said Janeway. "They know us in their own reality. Is that right Kat…no, it’s Kit, isn’t it?"

Kit nodded. "You could say that."

Tilly broke in. "In our reality, you’re the Captain, Chakotay is your first officer, Harry here is ops, B’Elanna is chief engineer, Seska used to be one of her assistants."

"Seska is on the station?" asked Janeway with a glance at Chakotay.

"First person we ran into."

Janeway took the vacated chair as Chakotay stood up. "I’ll have to let Smiley O’Brien know about this. Look, you two," he paused. "We probably can use your help. But Smiley knows how to get you back, so I’ll let him know you’re here." He left the room.

"So, I’m the Captain in your reality?" asked Janeway. "Sounds interesting."

"Oh, it is," replied Tilly.

"What’s happening with the Cardassians on your side of things? It sounds like Sisko trusts them. I wouldn’t!"

"Well, we don’t really have much to do with Cardassians anymore," said Tilly. "We spend more time with the Borg at the moment."

"The Borg? Well, you can have a break from them while you’re here. There aren’t any Swedes on this crew."

Tilly glanced at Kit’s annoyed expression and hid a laugh.

"Why does everyone think that the Borg are Swedish?" asked Kit.

"Well, our Borg is Swedish," replied Tilly.

"Okay," Kit said. "You’ve got me there."

Janeway couldn’t quite follow this conversation, so she changed the topic. "You know, you’ll have to come back with us to the station at the very least. Now that Vina’s been captured, we’ll have to try to get her out."

"What’s Vina like?" asked Kit.

"Different from your friend Tilly," said Harry. "She doesn’t laugh so much." It was obvious that Harry viewed laughter as a negative characteristic.

"Harry. Go cool your heels somewhere else. And send the half-breed up here." As Harry left, Janeway looked at them apologetically. "He’s annoying, but he gets the job done. And, if he kills a few alliance drones on the way, well…" Janeway shrugged. Kit reminded herself that this wasn’t their Janeway, either. As B’Elanna came into the room, Kit was reminded of that fact even more. "You. Take our visitors and get them something to eat. And treat them well." Every word held a threat. B’Elanna bobbed her head and gestured Kit and Tilly out the door.

"Kim says you aren’t really Kat and Vina. Who are you?" B’Elanna demanded.

Tilly was reminded of the stories she’d heard from Tom about B’Elanna as a full Klingon. This particular half-Klingon was about as close as she ever wanted to get. "Well," she answered. "I’m Tilly, and this is Kit. We’re from an alternate reality."

"Like Captain Sisko was," stated B’Elanna.

"Harry didn’t know about that. How do you?"

"I might be half Klingon, but that doesn’t mean I don’t have ears. Chakotay and his woman seem to forget that."

"You aren’t a slave, though, are you?" asked Kit.

"No - though Janeway would like me to be. But I’m too valuable. We’d never be able to get on the station without me. Here," she said, leading the way into another room. "We can get some food here."

"Wait a minute!" Tilly and Kit turned as they heard Chakotay’s voice. He strode up to them. "I’ve talked to Smiley. We’ve got to get Vina out of there - and we’ll need your help, Kit. Tilly, you can’t come…"

"Obviously," replied Tilly.

"…but if you know as much about the station as you say, we can still use your knowledge. Once we've got Vina out, Smiley will start working on a way to get you home."

"Well, at least we’ve got something to do, now, Kit," said Tilly.

"Get yourselves something to eat, then get Torres to show you where we’ll be. We’ve got to start planning this. It’s not going to be easy getting Vina out."

~~*~~

"So, we have no idea where they are?" Janeway wasn’t pleased.

"Well, at least we know where they aren’t," said Tom, trying to lighten the situation. He immediately found himself on the receiving end of four glares, and quizzical glances from Tuvok and Seven. "Sorry."

"Quite," said Janeway. "What information do we have?" she asked Tuvok.

"I have compared the readings we have taken of this object with those in our databanks of the so-called ‘Guardian of Forever’ in the Alpha Quadrant. The readings of the two are quite similar. However, there appears to be a complete lack of temporal variation."

"You mean, they only shifted place, not time?" asked Harry.

"That is one possibility. However, it must be noted that the readings gained from this object are even less stable than those of the Guardian."

Chakotay added, "I contacted the Oneri authorities to get a translation of the inscription. They refused to send anyone here to investigate, but apparently one of their archeologists is willing to look at pictures of the inscription and will attempt to translate it."

"I transmitted the data to the archaeologist about an hour ago," said Harry.

"Well, I think that we need to go down and look at this thing again," said Janeway. "Just, be very careful using tricorders around it. I don’t want anyone else to disappear until we’ve found out where they’ll end up. Alright - dismissed."

As they were leaving the briefing room, B’Elanna put a hand on Harry’s shoulder. "Hey, don’t worry. Kit and Tilly will be fine. I doubt there’s much that Tilly can’t handle."

"And Kit’s no slouch at looking after herself, either," added Tom.

"Besides, Ensign," said Janeway behind them, "You’re not the only one worried about them. We’ll get them back in time for rehearsals to start. I want to know who Tilly has chosen to play Nanki-poo."

~~*~~

Tilly and Kit had been left alone in the mess hall of the ship. They were both thankful for the chance to sort through all the information they had collected.

"Alright," said Kit, "Let’s go through everything we know."

Tilly eyed her suspiciously. "Are you one of those people who like to make lists?" she asked.

"Excuse me?" Kit asked, slightly stunned.

"I’ll bet you are. You like to compile lists of all relevant facts."

"Tilly, I am a lawyer, remember?"

"That does nothing to lessen the complaint."

Kit gave an exasperated sigh. "Tilly."

"Sorry," Tilly said meekly. "I’m dealing with the fact that this is my fault."

"Your fault? How is that?"

"I was playing the fool, Kit. I leapt up those stairs, and tripped. As a result, my tricorder emitted some sort of beam – I haven’t worked out what yet – and the next thing I know we’re here. If we get stuck here Kit, it’s all my fault."

"Tilly, you can’t blame yourself . . ." Kit started.

"I can and I will," Tilly said with a ferocity that surprised Kit.

As she looked at her friend, Kit began to realise that she was seeing a side of Tilly few people had ever seen and definitely no one on Voyager. Tilly had always been a symbol of confidence to the crew, second only to the Captain. But this scared Kit. Yet it made her realise something she hadn’t noticed before.

"You know Till, for all that you make out that you are so different from the Captain, you have a lot in common with her."

"Excuse me?"

"It’s all show, isn’t it? You’re as good, if not better, than the Captain at keeping on a mask. You don’t want anyone to know what you are really like, do you? You can’t have any one getting too close."

Tilly looked at Kit, refusing to deny any of the accusations. "Regardless of any of that," she said, staring her friend in the eye, "the fact remains that were are still here because of me."

Kit knew from her own experiences with Janeway that she wasn’t going to make Tilly see reason.

"Fine. Landing here was your fault. Now, what else do we know? Somehow, we’ve ended up about 45 000 light years from where we started, in the mirror universe, five years in the past."

Tilly grimaced. "I don’t even want to think about how that happened. Just listening to you say it is giving me a headache."

"Well, it is kind of impossible."

"Impossible? We’re 45,000 light years from home, sent there by a sporo-cystian life form, have made an alliance with the Borg, our Captain and pilot evolved into lizards and had offspring, and Tom is still piloting the ship. And you want to talk to me about impossible?"

"Point taken. Okay. The alliance is still in control of the station."

"Under the control of Kira Nerys."

"Agreed. We seem to have been picked up by a rebel cell that is planning an invasion of the station."

"A cell which is controlled by Chakotay. Although I have this suspicion that Janeway has a fair bit of influence," Tilly said, a wide gin on her face.

"That was simply too weird."

"Well, yes, but it kinda makes sense."

"It does?"

"In a weird mirror universe kind of way. We know Janeway would do whatever it takes to get us home. Imagine this Janeway is without our one’s morals, but still with her ambition."

Kit shook her head at the thought. "Anyway," she continued. "B’Elanna and Harry are also on this ship."

"And there was a reference to a Vulcan. Do you think it could be Tuvok?"

"It’s possible. And Tom is with Seska on the station."

"Now that is one I haven’t figured out yet. Don’t know that I want to actually," Tilly said, a frown crossing her face.

"Agreed."

"And my alternate self has been captured – and I am taking that as a personal insult – and we’ve no idea where your alternate self is."

"Probably dead," said a voice from the door.

They looked up to see B’Elanna standing in the doorway.

"What makes you say that?" Tilly asked carefully.

"Kat and Vina were working together. Vina’s been captured. So provided Vina didn’t kill Kat on the way, Kat must have been killed by the alliance."

Kit paled. "If Vina didn’t kill Kat?"

"Oh yes. In this universe, you two can’t stand each other. Don’t know why, but whatever it is, it goes back a long way. Vina was quite prepared to leave Kat for dead when Kat joined us after her cell was wiped out by the Alliance."

"Why were they working together then?" Tilly asked, ever curious.

"Janeway put them together. She’s sadistic like that some days."

"Now that I have a problem with," Tilly said.

B’Elanna shrugged. "She has a problem with you, so I suppose it works out."

Tilly laughed. "Well, at least some things are consistent."

"Your Janeway has a problem with you?"

"Oh yes," said Kit. "Tilly’s forever pushing the line, without ever breaking the rules."

"You can joke about her?"

"Janeway? Oh yeah. But then again, I don’t think there’s anyone on our ship I don’t joke about," Tilly said.

"Things sure are different in your universe. Come on, Chakotay wants to get started. He’s worried about what they’re doing to Vina."

~~*~~

"Urgh."

His body slammed up against the bulkhead, a sharp pain in his chest from where he had been hit. He slid down the wall, wondering when the next blow would come. It didn’t.

Instead, he felt the weight of a boot against his chest, as his attacker leant down. She pulled his head up, grabbing at the collar of his shirt, and spoke in his face.

"Give me one good reason why I shouldn’t kill you Paris," she said, her voice soft, low and dangerous.

"How about for old times sake, Vina?" Tom asked.

Vina threw him back down in disgust, and walked away.

"Like that means anything to you, Paris." Vina spun back around. "You left me for dead."

"You were alive when I left you," Paris said as he struggled to stand up.

"You call that living?"

"What was I supposed to do Vina? It was the only way out."

"It was not, I got out, didn’t I?"

"Vina, you don’t understand . . ."

"No I don’t. It was your kind that put me in here Tom, and that’s all I need to know." She walked off, and sat down against the opposite wall, refusing to face him.

~~*~~

"Are you sure you know what you're doing?" Chakotay asked Kit as they, along with B'Elanna and Harry, prepared to re-board the station.

"Well, if she doesn't, I'm not going," growled Harry.

"I know what I'm doing!" Kit snapped back at Harry.

Chakotay leered. "You're beginning to fit in, Kit."

"Maybe a little too well," said Tilly, who had accompanied the group to the airlock. "Watch yourself, Kit." Kit nodded in response, and Tilly disappeared back into the corridor of the ship. Kit watched her go a little warily. For the first time since they'd ended up here, she was on her own, and she wasn't sure she liked the idea.

However, she had little choice in the matter. B'Elanna, dressed in full Klingon regalia, was striding out of the airlock, with Harry and Chakotay walking behind. With a tug at the unfamiliar - and dirty - clothes she had been given to wear, she followed them onto the station.

Kit hadn't wanted to be part of the rescue mission. For one thing, they could come across Kat - which Kit definitely didn't want to happen. For another, the stories B'Elanna had told them about the relationship between Kat and Vina meant Kit wasn't so sure she wanted to see Vina, either. Considering that they were supposed to be rescuing Vina, her doubts were not all that helpful. And on top of all that, she couldn't understand why Chakotay wanted her to come along in the first place. It had been at least three years since she had last been on Deep Space Nine, and there were sure to be differences between the Federation station and Terok Nor in any case. But Chakotay was convinced that Kit could be of help, and as he was in charge, there wasn't anything anyone else could say.

They made their way through the docking ring and across to what Kit knew as the Promenade with surprisingly little trouble. B'Elanna was devastatingly convincing in her "slave trader" guise, and a growl to the single Bajoran guard who stopped them had the group through the checkpoint at once. Kit was again struck by the difference in the atmosphere between this station and the one she knew. She winced at the sight of a chain gang of Terrans being led towards Ore Processing by a number of Cardassian guards, then realised that she would have to school her emotions if she wanted to get back to the ship alive. At this point she wasn't even considering getting back to her own time. That was just too much to think about right now.

Instead, she went over their plan in her head - she was to keep watch outside the brig, once they got there, while the others went in to break Vina out. She and Chakotay each had a sub-dermal communicator, and she would be beamed back to the ship after they had got Vina out. When they had been planning the raid, Tilly had asked why, if they could beam the group out, they wouldn't beam them in. Chakotay had replied, reasonably, that they didn't like beaming in to places they weren't sure were safe. Beaming out of danger zones was a different matter, which was fine with Kit.

What the other three were going to do once they got into the brig was up to them, and Kit didn't think she really wanted to know. Despite her snappish reply to Harry, she felt absolutely out of place in an atmosphere of such aggressiveness and life and death struggle. She didn't want to have to kill anyone, and she would prefer not to know if those she was with were killing others.

B'Elanna hesitated slightly as they got to the Promenade, which shook Kit out of her thoughts. As subtly as they could, Chakotay and Harry manoeuvred so that Kit was now directly behind B'Elanna. Kit knew that she had to direct B'Elanna to the brig - she just hoped that was where Vina was.

"Straight ahead," she said in a low voice. She'd finally found something positive about Tilly's insistence on theatre productions - Kit knew exactly how to project her voice so that it reached B'Elanna and no further. Something else to thank Tilly for one of these days.

Kit wrenched her mind back to the present - she was annoyed that her concentration was so bad, and willed herself to stay on track. They passed Quark's Bar, or rather, "Nog's," Kit noticed, and were approaching what was, in her own Universe, Constable Odo's office.

"Brig third door on left," said Kit, briefly.

B'Elanna turned into the doorway, nodding sharply to the two guards. "I'll need your help with these three," she snapped at them. The guards followed them into the first room of the brig - a sort of admissions room, with a desk and a terminal, and three doors leading out of it. The Cardassian behind the desk stood up.

"New prisoners?"

"Yes."

The Cardassian turned towards the wall terminal. B'Elanna pulled a disruptor from her belt, and fired. At the same moment, Harry and Chakotay each turned on one of the guards that had been following them. Harry seemed to have dispatched his guard with a quick hand chop to the neck, but Chakotay was having more trouble. B'Elanna turned from where she was covering the other entrances and shot the guard.

All of this had been done as quietly as possibly, and Kit had stayed out of the way. B'Elanna hissed at her to grab one of the guards' rifles, which she did, handling the weapon warily. Chakotay noticed her hesitation, and took the Cardassian disruptor rifle from her, switching it with B'Elanna's smaller weapon. "Better?"

Kit nodded.

Chakotay jerked his head at the entrance, and Kit moved back down the hall to keep watch. She knew the others would be dragging the three guards - the Cardassian and the two Bajorans - out of the admissions room, in case anyone did turn up. They were hoping to leave them in Vina's cell once they had found her.

Kit didn't go all the way out of the brig entrance as she couldn't think of any plausible reason for a Terran to be on the promenade without an escort. There wasn't any better reason to be inside the entrance, but it felt safer. She wished she knew what was going on inside the brig. It wasn't a part of DS9 she had any reason to know well, but she and a few friends had poked around the station on their way through, and had looked at the brig. The doors in the admissions room lead to three multi-chambered cell blocks, each of which had nine cells, grouped in threes. It was a strange design, but had the advantage, in this situation, of leaving plenty of places to hide if someone unwanted turned up.

Like Kira and Garak, who were walking straight towards her. Hell.

"Why, Kat! Whatever are you doing here?" purred Kira. "Annika told me you were working for the little Ferengi."

So Kat wasn't an ordinary slave, then. "I've finished for the day, Intendant." She would have to get better at thinking on her feet.

Kira's eyes narrowed. "Really?" she drawled. "Well, I wanted to talk to you anyway. Garak."

"Yes, Intendant," said Garak, turning down the entrance to the brig.

Kit slowly put her arms behind her back as though she were in parade rest, and frantically tapped the communicator implanted in her wrist.

"We have another job for Annika," said Kira, leaning up against the wall. "You know the Cardassian, Seska?"

"Yes, Intendant."

"Intriguing woman," said Kira, reaching out a hand to stroke Kit's chin. "Not quite as fascinating as your mistress, but still," she paused, "intriguing." Kira closed her eyes as though picturing Seska in her mind. Then the eyes snapped open. "She is a spy, sent by the Regent. So, she must be dealt with."

"Yes, Intendant."

"Her slave has been in my brig for the past few days - renewing a mutual acquaintance." Kira looked significantly at Kit, who guessed that the "mutual acquaintance" must be Vina. "Garak will make him talk - I have no qualms about that. We'll deal with him ourselves. You need only concern yourselves with Seska."

"I understand, Intendant."

"Let Annika know. She can contact me when it is complete."

Garak came back down the entrance hall, dragging a dishevelled Tom Paris with him.

"So, how did they get along?" Kira asked.

"Fairly well, by the look of this one's broken ribs," leered Garak. "I'm sure they enjoyed seeing each other again - didn't you?" Garak hit Tom in the side to make him answer.

"She sure did," he replied, with just a trace of the trademark Paris attitude. He looked up as he spoke and saw Kit. Just as when they had met Seska on the promenade, his eyes widened, but he said nothing.

"Let's get this underway," said Kira, striding away without a further word to Kit. When the three had disappeared, Kit sagged back against the wall in relief. She allowed herself just a moment of relaxation, however, as she knew that someone else could easily come along. She was relieved to feel a vibration from the communicator letting her know that they had found Vina.

"Now," she said, under her breath, "let's just get her, and me, out of here before Garak starts wondering where all the guards were." She moved closer to the entrance, thinking over the conversation with the Intendant. Kira should have been suspicious that she was so close to the brig, and yet the Intendant hadn't seemed at all surprised. Kat was obviously known to Kira and Garak, and she obviously had some sort of privileges that meant she didn't work in ore processing. Who had Kira referred to? Annika? The name rang a bell - Seven! She was working for Seven of Nine? Of course, it could easily be someone else with that name, but the way these Universes seemed to work…. Kit shook her head, trying to sort out all the information about the situation she found herself in.

The communicator vibrated once again, the signal that the others were about to beam up. Kit was about to turn back towards the brig, so that she would be out of sight when the transport occurred, but she locked eyes with a woman standing across the promenade from her. Kit took one look at the woman's shocked face, and the clothes she was wearing, and then disappeared back into the brig, shaking slightly. She had only just got back to the central room of the brig when she felt the transporter kick in.

~~*~~

Kat looked back at the entrance to the brig for a second time. She could have sworn that she had seen her own double, dressed as a Terran slave, and that was an image she did not need reminding of. She had worked damn hard to get where she was - to get away from her previous, hellish life - and it hadn’t been easy.

Pushing the memories to the back of her mind, Kat walked into Nog’s bar, tugging impatiently at her outfit in an attempt to get it to show off the right bits, and hide the rest. The suit Annika had handed to her earlier in the day was obviously intended to expose the wearer’s cleavage, lower back, and as much other flesh as possible. That was part of the job here - to flirt, entice, and seduce. Seduce men into spending their money at the Dabo wheel, that is. And from the leer on the little Ferengi’s face, she was probably going to do well at that particular job.

The Ferengi looked her up and down. "You’ll do,’ he said. "Too much fabric and not enough skin if you ask me, though. You’re working table three," he finished, with a jerk of his head. "Forty per cent commission, and your wages go straight to Annika."

"Annika only agreed to twenty per cent commission, big ears," said Kat. She wasn’t going to take crap from anyone, least of all this little worm.

"Thirty five - and don’t think I mind my big ears," said Nog. "More room for more Oo-mox."

"Twenty-five. I wouldn’t be so self-assured. You’re just giving the Alliance more target area when they finally decide to kill you, just like your uncle and your father."

"My uncle! Soft-hearted pile of gagh." Nog spat in Kat’s direction, only just missing her. "You’re dealing with me, not him. Thirty per cent, and that’s my final offer."

As thirty per cent was what Annika was willing to accept, Kat left it at that. "Thirty per cent. Done."

"Don’t think you’ll get the extra ten per cent, missy. I know Annika Hansen."

Kat bent down so that she was face to face with the Ferengi. The Ferengi’s eyes went straight to the low neck of her suit. "I know Annika, too, you undergrown vole, and she doesn’t like greedy Ferengi trying to take her money." She straightened up, and walked past Nog to her table, pushing him off balance as she did so. It was a fine line, but she knew just how far she could go.

Kat took her place behind the third Dabo table along, and began to sort the tokens in front of her. She sweet-talked the patrons around her, and soon had a large crowd of Klingons and Bajorans, mostly male, around her table. She flirted, made sure the house took a reasonable cut of the bets, and kept her eyes on everyone in the bar. There were a pair of Klingons propped up at a table nearby - the table had pools of blood wine all over it, and neither Klingon was in a condition to go anywhere. One of them, tall and brawny, with a scarred flap of skin where one eye would usually be, broke off the drinking song they were singing, and thumped his fist emphatically on the table.

"Memnok was the greatest poet that ever lived!" he yelled.

"You are a drunken fool, Martok," said the other Klingon, with a thin face, and eyes that appeared to be jumping out of his head. "He stole his best work."

"You are the drunken fool, Gowron," came the reply. "It was the Terran who stole Memnok’s plays. To stab or not to stab," he growled. "That is not even a question! More bloodwine, furry guy," he yelled at Nog.

"Not furry guy - he’s a fuzzy goo…a ferny gul…Boy!" yelled the second Klingon, giving up. "More bloodwine!"

"To stab or not to stab," repeated the first Klingon, slurring the words.

"There is no need in the mind to suffer," said the second, "The Mek’letHs of outrageous fortune. Take up arms against that sea of troubles, and hasten them to Sto’Vo’Kor!" He slammed his fist into a pool of bloodwine on the table, splashing it up into his companion’s face.

"You die!!" yelled the first. "Not sleep. For sleeping is dishonour!"

Nog arrived with two more mugs of bloodwine. "All right - keep it down, keep it down."

At that, both Klingons jumped to their feet. They swayed a little, but before they pitched over, they each put a hand on the other’s shoulder, and managed to hold each other up.

"You shall not silence us!" said one.

"We are quoting from the great and glorious Memnok!" yelled the other. As they were standing there, they broke into song again.

When they finished, they drained their mugs of bloodwine, turned to each other and bashed foreheads. The rest of the people in the bar were now giving their table a wide berth. Kat turned her back on them, and spun the Dabo wheel, bending over slightly as she did so to give the Bajoran across from her a good view. Only four more hours to go.

~~*~~

The first sounds Kit heard when she materialised on the rebel ship were the sounds of a struggle. B'Elanna and Harry were trying to hold back a woman intent on charging onto the transporter platform. "She's a bloody traitor. She's co-operating with the Alliance!" the woman yelled at Chakotay, who had one of the guards' rifles trained on her. "You little bitch!" the woman yelled, finally, spitting in Kit's direction. "You betrayed your own cell to the Alliance, didn’t you?"

"Vina?" Kit asked. "I'm not Kat. I know I look like her, but…"

"Yeah, right. Like I'd believe that," Vina yelled back, then to B'Elanna and Harry, "Will you bloody well let me go!"

"No, they won't," said Chakotay. "Not until you calm down. Kit helped get you out of that brig, and you will NOT attack her."

Vina glared at Chakotay, and then at Kit. She didn't stop struggling, despite Chakotay's order, until Tilly came around the corner into the transporter bay.

"Kit, you alright?"

"You bet," replied Kit coming off the platform to greet her friend.

"Who the hell?" said Vina, drawing Tilly's attention. Tilly blanched slightly at the sight of Vina - thinner and scrawnier than she was - but walked right up to her counterpart. The others in the transporter bay looked at the two women with interest.

"G'day," said Tilly hand outstretched. "I'm Arvina Matilda Watson. And if I'm not mistaken, you are too."

Vina narrowed her eyes and looked at Tilly, then swivelled around to face Chakotay. "What the HELL is going on here? What are you doing to me? And would you get her," Vina pointed with her chin at Kit, "and the clone out of here?"

"I'm not a clone," said Tilly. "Haven't you ever heard of mirror universes?"

"I haven't seen a mirror in five years."

"Hey, good line," replied Tilly. "I'll have to remember that one."

"Tilly, you and Kit get out of here. You're too much trouble right now," said Chakotay. "We'll talk to you later."

"Fine," said Tilly, and came over to Kit. "Come on, we aren't wanted here."

Kit pushed away from the wall she had been leaning on, and the two left.

"Are you certain you're all right? You look shaky," Tilly asked her friend.

"I'm fine. I'll be fine. I don't see how you can just look at Vina so calmly like you do."

Tilly shrugged. "Hey, it's kind of like having an evil twin. But what's up with you?"

"Plenty. I think my 'evil twin' is working as a Dabo girl. And as an assassin for the Alliance."

~~*~~

"The Oneri archeologist we contacted said that the symbols on the device are from an old Oneri language," Harry reported. "The first lot, on the left side, are warnings – portents of danger, that sort of thing."

"Oh joy," said Tom

Harry ignored him. "The second group of symbols, loosely translated, mean ‘anywhere in time and space’."

"Well, that narrows it down."

"Tom," Janeway sighed.

"So basically, he was of little help?" Chakotay asked.

"Perhaps not," B’Elanna countered. "That gave us an idea." She stood up to take over from Harry. "The artefact itself is slightly out of phase with our universe, which suggests to me that it is also present in another universe. Our scans show residue tetryon particles. If the beam from Tilly’s tricorder was a tetryon beam, it could have caused the reaction Harry saw."

"So where does that put Kit and Tilly?" Janeway asked.

Harry and B’Elanna looked at each other. "We’re not a hundred percent sure, but we don’t think they’re in our universe anymore."

"What do you mean?"

"Well, remember Kirk…?"

~~*~~

"I can’t believe this," Tilly complained. "After all you do for them, they lock us up again."

"Til, we haven’t been locked up," Kit said calmly.

"May as well be. I want to hear what Vina has to say."

"Enjoy listening to yourself, do you?"

Tilly sighed. "I’m sorry Kit. I hate not knowing what’s going on." Tilly sat down next to her. "How are you?"

"I don’t know Til. I mean, she’s not me, but she is. And if she’s responsible for what happened to you . . "

"Hey," Tilly interrupted. "You have never been anything but the best friend to me. Kat and Vina are totally different people, and what happened with them is unfortunate, but it is not us. Remember that."

"I know," Kit agreed. "I just need to get my mind off things."

Tilly grinned wickedly. "I have the perfect idea. We need to rewrite the lyrics to the ‘Lord High Executioner’. Who do we want on our list?"

Kit smiled. "The Borg?"

"Any one in particular, or just the Borg in general?"

"Tilly."

"Sorry. Okay. Borg. Hirogen?"

"Definitely. 8472?"

"Dunno. Chakotay might get upset with that…"

"Chakotay might get upset with what?" Chakotay stood in the doorway, looking at the pair with interest.

"Oh, not you," said Tilly. "Our Chakotay."

"Aha."

"Did you want something, or are you just trying to intimidate us? Cause if that’s all it is, you’re not doing it terribly well."

"Actually, we need you in the briefing room," he said, turning away.

They quickly made their way to the mess hall, which served as a briefing room for this motley crew.

Vina, although somewhat calmer than she had been earlier, still looked at the pair suspiciously. Tilly just grinned at her.

"You said you thought your alternate self was working for the alliance," Chakotay said to Kit. "Why do you believe that?"

"I was standing watch outside the brig when Kira approached me. She said that she had a job for me - well, for Kat - and Annika…"

"That no good cow," Harry muttered.

Tilly looked at him in surprise. She was having difficulty remembering how serious this situation was. Some divine being somewhere had a wicked sense of humour.

Kit ignored Harry’s comment. "Kira wanted Annika and Kat to assassinate Seska. Seska is apparently a spy for the Regent, and the Intendant wants to get rid of her. She gave the job to Kat."

"That seems to confirm what Vina told us," Janeway said.

"What did Vina tell you?" Tilly asked.

"That Kat betrayed her to the Alliance. . Vina thinks Kat might be working for an alliance Assassin. She told Garak that Vina was on the station, and where he could find her. That’s how she ended up in the brig."

"Ouch."

"Do you take anything seriously?" Harry demanded.

Tilly gave some show of thinking about the question. "Not really, no."

Kit ignored her. "How does this change things?" she asked.

"Quite a bit," Chakotay admitted. "We were relying on Kat and Vina’s knowledge of the station to help take it."

"I can still get in and shut down the main computers," Vina argued.

"Not on your own you won’t. Besides, Kat would have told them about your skills, and our plans."

"Well, yes," said Tilly. "But you do have one advantage that they don’t know about."

"And that is?" Chakotay asked.

"Us."

Kit looked at Tilly, stunned.

"Til," she warned.

"Well, think about it," Tilly continued. "What would get their attention more that Vina and Kat fighting on the promenade? Kit’s already played her alternate self once, and I’m sure I could pull off Vina. It’d be one hell of a performance. That should divert attention for a while. By the time they figure out what’s going on, Kit can be out of there, and I can be causing blue murder. They’ll chase me, thinking I’m after the computers, giving Vina free access."

"You think you can hold their attention long enough?" Chakotay asked.

"Wouldn’t be worth my salt if I couldn’t. Does that give you what you need?"

Chakotay was thinking very carefully about Tilly’s plan. "It definitely has merit."

"You have to make sure Kit gets out though. I won’t do it unless she can get out. They’re likely to recognise her as a double before me.

"Til, there’s a possibility you could get caught."

"There’s always that possibility, Kit, you know that. Besides, you know me. Have I yet found a character I couldn’t play?"

"Yum-Yum?"

"I said couldn’t, not wouldn’t."

"Til, this isn’t our universe. Things don’t work the same here."

"Kit, quit worrying. I couldn’t live with myself if I didn’t take the chance.

Kit sighed. There was nothing she could do to change Tilly’s mind.

"Alright," she conceded. "Just be careful."

"If you two have quite finished," Chakotay said.

"Hang on," said Kit. "What’s the rest of the plan?"

"The less you know, the better," Chakotay said. "Just in case."

~~*~~

Tilly and Kit moved stealthily through the outer sections of Terok Nor, each dressed as their alternate selves. They needed to avoid all contact with the station’s inhabitants. Sources on board the station had informed Chakotay that Kat was not on the promenade, but this information was already half an hour old. Reaching the observation deck, Tilly risked a look down into Nog’s bar.

"She’s not there," she said.

"Good. That’s one meeting I don’t want to have," Kit said.

"Now, Kit, remember," Tilly said, looking her friend straight in the eye. "You are her. Act it. You have every right to be here."

Kit drew a deep breath, drawing on the well of confidence deep inside her. She nodded. "No problem," she said, starting to move away. "Be careful."

"Kit, where’s the fun in that?"

Kit sighed. There were some things that never changed, and Tilly was one of them.

They walked from opposite ends towards each other. While Kit kept to the centre of the promenade, Tilly moved to the side, almost skulking in her movements. As they moved closer, Kit stormed over to Tilly, pulling her into the main walkway.

"You!" she yelled.

Till glanced around, as if seeking an avenue of escape. Seeing none, she launched into her performance.

"What do you want, bitch?"

Kit stared at her friend, reminded again how good she was at acting. "You got away from me once," she said. "I’m not going to let that happen again."

"Ha! Give it a try you traitorous swine, and I’ll see you in hell."

"Oh, gladly, gudgeon. Enjoy seeing the flyboy again did you?" said Kit. "I hear he escaped alive…not your usual style."

"I let you live, didn’t I?"

"That was your last mistake, you Orion strumpet – you won’t have a chance to make another one." Kit was beginning to warm up now, and was almost enjoying herself.

"You’re that sure of yourself, are you?"

"When the Intendant is done with you, you’ll wish you were back in the desert burying toxic waste, with the rest of your worthless Terran friends."

"I’d rather have the toxic waste as a friend than you - Alliance bootlicker!" Tilly snapped. She sensed movement off to her side, and snuck a look. It was Garak. She threw Kit an apologetic look. "I’ll give you a free shot later," she muttered, taking a swing at Kit.

Kit staggered back, shock registering on her face. Tilly looked back over her shoulder to she Garak and the Klingons moving in. She grinned madly, before taking off down the promenade.

"After her!" Garak ordered, and the Klingons followed her. He stopped and looked at Kit. "You okay, my dear?"

"I’m fine," Kit said. "Get her."

To Kit’s relief, Garak followed the Klingons. Kit looked after them for a moment, rubbing her jaw. She then walked off, as nonchalantly as possible, to the prearranged transport site.

\-- --

Tilly risked a glance behind her. Garak and his Klingons were still on here tail. She smiled. She hadn’t really tried to loose them yet, so that Vina would have the time she needed to disable the station’s computers. Tilly really wished she had more info as to the actual plan of attack after the computers were fried, but she understood Chakotay’s concern. She looked around her. She was in a corridor leading to ore processing – not an option, she thought dryly. She stopped, and pulled off the cover of the Jeffries tube, and climbed in. The thing Tilly loved about these stations was the twists and turns in them. They made chases interesting.

"K’Ehal," she heard Garak’s voice, "you follow her. Rytek, come with me."

Tilly thought about it. Obviously, this passage must lead somewhere. Realising she would not last long fighting a battle on two fronts. Turning a corner, she noticed that this juncture had a higher roof. She grinned. Sometimes, this reminded her of when she to play ‘raiders’ or some other chasing game with her brothers in the caves near their home. She had learnt a lot in those games that had come in handy in the Delta Quadrant. Not that this was exactly the Delta Quadrant. And her father had said they were being foolhardy. Just proved what he didn’t know. She grabbed hold of the railings that seemed so thoughtfully provided, and hoisted herself up to the so-called roof, and waited.

The Klingon came around the corner, and paused, looking for her prey. Finally, she looked up.

"Good morning" Tilly said cheerfully, before punching her in the face.

As she was crawling, the Klingon could not manoeuvre herself to attack Tilly, Tilly hit her again before falling on top of her and applying the Vulcan neck pinch. She retrieved the disrupter the Klingon had used before taking off.

"Thank you, Tuvok" she muttered to herself.

By her time, Tilly figured she had been running for twenty minutes. That was all the time that Vina had said she needed. Still, if she could gave her counterpart an extra ten or fifteen minutes, it would mean she would be safely away.

She slowed her pace as she came to the end of the passage. Knowing Garak, there’d be someone on each side of the exit. She had done the job that was required of her, Vina would have finished her modifications to the computers, and all attention had been on her instead. Being caught now wasn’t too much of an issue – as soon as the computers went down, then she’d be out. Taking a deep breath, she jumped out of the entrance to the Jeffries tube, firing the disrupter indiscriminately. Turning, she took aim at a Klingon, hitting him in the chest. She took a shot at Garak then, but he dived and the shot went wide.

"You’re cornered, Terran. Give up," he demanded.

"What, you going to hold me all by yourself?" Tilly demanded. "You might get your hands dirty."

"Look around Terran, you’re finished." Garak sneered.

Tilly looked around. Sure enough, she was surrounded. Three more Klingons were approaching her position. Instinct told her to fight and run, but reason told her that there was no point. She had to stay alive, and running would only get her killed. Grinning, she dropped the weapon. Her actions seemed to unnerve Garak – he must have wanted her to run.

They took her by the arms, and began escorting her, somewhat roughly, to the brig. They were stopped by another Cardassian who came running at them.

"Mister Garak, we caught the Terran, Vina." He said.

"I know that you fool." Garak replied.

The Cardassian looked at Tilly, his face revealing his confusion.

"But, that’s not her."

"What?"

Tilly groaned as two other Cardassians brought forward Vina. She looked at her counterpart, trying to fathom if she had been successful.

"We caught her near the computer core," the Cardassian said.

"Wasn’t the point of me being here so that you didn’t get caught?" Tilly said.

"Change of plans," Vina responded.

"Thanks for letting me know."

"Hey, what are friends for?"

"I didn’t think you had any friends."

"Well, now you know why."

"Enough!" Garak yelled. "I don’t know what’s going on, but I will find out. Take them to the brig."

Both Watsons bowed their heads. Unknown to Garak, Vina had made it clear to Tilly that she had been successful.

~~*~~

Kit breathed a sigh of relief when she arrived back on the rebel ship. While she understood why Tilly had volunteered them for this plan, and she really did want to help the rebels, she felt safer, and much happier, when she was away from the station. Everything in this universe was strange - Janeway draped over Chakotay like a Dabo girl, B’Elanna at everyone else’s beck and call, Harry bitter, twisted, and almost evil - but she could cope with most of it. What she had to face on the station, however, pretending to be her own counterpart, was getting to be too much for her. So, back on the ship she went straight to the mess hall and got some coffee. Not surprisingly, it wasn’t much better than Neelix’s.

B’Elanna was sitting in a corner of the room, nursing a mug of Raktajino. She looked up, saw Kit, and smiled wanly. Kit took that as encouragement to join her. "Hey - how are you doing?" she asked.

"Surviving, like every other day," replied B’Elanna. "I do what they tell me, I sleep when they let me. How did you go on the station?"

"All right, I think," said Kit, rubbing her cheek self-consciously. "Tilly got right into her character - gave me a good whack across the face."

B’Elanna looked at it. "Doesn’t look too bad - you’ll have a bit of a bruise for a while, though."

"I can cope with that," said Kit. "So, what happens now?"

"I don’t know any more than you do," said B’Elanna. "Chakotay will tell me what he needs me to do, when he needs me to do it. That’s the way he runs this ship." She took a sip of her drink. "You know - you’re much nicer than Kat. Whenever I’ve come across her, she’s treated me like dirt. Just because of these things," she finished, indicating her brow ridges.

"Well, it’s not like I understand her," said Kit. "After all, I’ve hardly seen her for more than a couple of seconds, all tarted up as a Dabo girl. But what I do know is that your counterpart is one of my best friends - as well as being about the best engineer anyone on our ship has ever seen."

"Huh. Wishful thinking that they’d ever let me anywhere near the engines," said B’Elanna. The two women sat in silence for a few moments. "Tell me more about your universe," said B’Elanna.

"No time for that," said Harry from the doorway. "Chakotay’s just heard from one of his sources on the station. Vina and your loud-mouth friend have been captured. They’re both in the brig." Kit sat still in shock. Harry stared at her, mockingly. "I guess you’re all on your own now, sweetie. Think you can cope?"

"Oh, I think so," Kit answered, an edge coming into her voice. She turned back to B’Elanna. "Sorry, I’ve got to go." She stood up, resting a hand lightly on the half-Klingon’s shoulder.

Harry stood blocking the doorway. "Oh, I don’t think there’s anything you can do, Kitten. Getting people out of an Alliance brig isn’t easy, you know."

Kit narrowed her eyes. "You have no idea what I’m capable of, Harry Kim. For example," she cocked her head, "the last person on Voyager who called me 'Kitten' ended up in Sickbay." She walked purposefully towards the door, and Harry got out of her way. Kit smiled to herself, imagining how Tilly would have reacted to her exaggeration. Tom Paris had never again made the mistake of calling her "Kitten", and he had, of course, ended up in sickbay, but…

"Where are you going?" asked B’Elanna, bringing Kit back to the present.

Kit paused in the doorway. "To see Chakotay. I want to know exactly what he’s planning, and when he intends to get Tilly and Vina out of there."

~~*~~

Kat walked past the guards into the brig with no trouble at all. She would like to have thought that it was a result of either her own or Annika’s notoriety - either would have done - but she suspected it had more to do with the goggle-eyed state of the guards once they saw her in her work clothes. Just before the end of her shift, the talk in the bar had been about the re-arrest of a recently escaped Terran. There was only one recently escaped Terran that Kat knew of, but she wanted to make sure that it actually was Vina. She could have simply asked Annika - whose information was always the most up to date, wherever they were - but Kat wanted to see Vina with her own eyes. Of course, that was despite the fact that she currently doubted her own eyes after the incident on the promenade earlier.

She’d known Vina for years, but they’d become less friendly rather than more so. In fact, Kat suspected that the only reason it would be safe for her to see Vina now would be because they would each be on opposite sides of a force field. Not that she hadn’t done her share of trying to rid herself of Vina. The damn woman just refused to die.

When she entered Vina’s cell block, she saw that Vina had been put in a cell with an old acquaintance - Tom Paris. Tom was slumped in the front corner of the cell, while Vina was leaning against the back wall, a scowl on her face. The back corner of the cell closest to Kat was hidden from her view. Kat crossed her arms and stared at Vina for a moment. "Oh, isn’t this sweet!" she said, her voice dripping with sarcasm. "How are you keeping, Tommy?’"

Vina looked up and frowned. "Kat - what an unpleasant surprise."

"For you, I’m sure it is," replied Kat. "How many times have you been put in the brig now?"

"About as many times as I’ve escaped from it."

"Pity you can’t keep yourself out of it," said Kat, "Or do you just miss Tommy here too much to be parted from him?"

A third voice spoke. "This must be the Kat I’ve been hearing so much about." Kat had assumed that Vina and Tom were the cell’s only occupants, but as she shifted to have a clear view, she found herself looking at another woman, almost identical to Vina. And this time Kat could be sure that it wasn’t her eyes that were the problem.

"You’re not the only one, are you?" she asked the second woman softly.

"No, she isn’t, and I’ve known that for days," said Tom.

Kat ignored him, then turned around and left the brig. As she left, Vina called after her, "You know, with what you’re wearing, it really isn’t a good idea to cross your arms like that!"

Tilly looked at her counterpart. "What is it with you two?" she asked in amazement.

"It’s a long story," said Tom, from his corner.

"Shut up," said Vina. "It’s my story, I’ll tell it."

"Well, someone had better tell it," said Tilly, "Because I’d love to actually understand what’s going on around here."

"Kat and I worked together in the Ore mines on Bajor. We helped each other through a few rough times. We planned an escape. She got out, and she didn’t come back to help me out. When it came down to it, her freedom was more important to her than anything else. Some friend!"

Tom, greatly daring, opened his mouth. "What Vina isn’t telling you is that since then, they’ve tried to kill each other at least a couple of times."

"And she’s the one who got me in here in the first place."

"That’s not really something that greatly enhances the friendship," agreed Tilly.

"Look," said Vina. "I don’t want this friendship enhanced, and neither does she. I wish she were dead, it’s as simple as that."

"And she probably thinks the same about you," said Tom.

~~*~~

Kat hurried into the suite of rooms that had been assigned to her and Annika. There was something strange happening on Terok Nor, and she wanted to figure it out. One Vina had been more than enough, and now, for some reason, there were two. And there were also, apparently, two Kats. The thought that there might be someone else running around Terok Nor, pretending to be her and probably supporting the rebels, unsettled Kat. She had rushed through the central room of the suite and was almost in her own room when a movement by the view port caught her eye.

"Have you had a successful day, my dear?" asked Annika, who was facing out the view port.

"The Ferengi will be transferring my wages to your credit account, Annika. You can see for yourself, then." Kat kept going towards her room.

"Wait."

Kat stopped.

"Don’t go change yet, Kat - you look so lovely," said Annika, turning to face her assistant. "And we need to have a talk." Annika sat down and indicated a nearby seat to Kat, who took it warily. Something in Annika’s tone seemed dangerous. "Have you found us any work yet?"

"No, Annika - although I’m sure someone on the station would be willing to pay money to be rid of that disgusting Ferengi. He overprices and he waters the drinks."

"And he leers at every woman in sight," agreed Annika, smoothly. "But until someone hires us, keep a hold on your temper. We offer a discreet service to our clients. Disposing of a man, annoying as he may be, in the middle of a public place, is not a good advertisement."

"Of course, Annika."

"Now, my dear," said Annika tenderly, leaning towards Kat and running the back of her fingers over Kat’s cheek and down her shoulder, "Are you certain that you haven’t been approached with any work?"

Kat could see where this was going. Obviously, someone had talked to Kat - the other Kat - about a job for Annika. And now Annika was going to blame her. "No, I haven’t," said Kat.

Annika lifted the hand that had been stroking Kat’s arm and struck her hard across the face. "Think again."

Her cheek stinging, Kat took a breath. "I may have been, but the request was so vague…." She braced herself for another blow.

Annika sat back, staring at Kat. "There was nothing vague in the Intendant’s request to me, my dear," she said coldly. "She said she spoke to you outside the brig, and told you that she wanted us to deal with Seska - a Cardassian woman. Do you know her?"

Kat breathed an internal sigh of relief - now that she knew that information, it would be far easier to bluff. "Yes, I know her."

"One of your little friends from prison was her body man."

Kat nodded.

Annika laughed suddenly, one of the mercurial changes of mood that made the tall blonde woman so dangerous. "Apparently he angered Garak today, and he had your friend put in the brig pending execution. Garak is so hot-tempered! I wonder what Kira sees in him sometimes."

"Execution?" Kat asked. "Why?"

"Does it matter?" shrugged Annika. "He’s just a Terran slave. Like that other friend of yours - the one who got into the computer core."

"Vina?"

"Yes, that might be her name. She got into the computer core - I don’t know what she was trying to do, but whatever it was, it failed. She had a clone or an android to distract the guards. Garak’s men chased it all over the station. Yes," Annika finished musingly, "There’s going to be quite a sight on the promenade tomorrow. Two Terran bodies. I wonder how they’ll execute the android?" Annika got up from her chair and moved away. She stopped just before the door into her room. Kat sat silent on the sofa, tensed for whatever was coming next.

"Kat, don’t ever forget to pass on messages from the Intendant. I don’t like it when Kira knows something I don’t. And I don’t like it when my assistant tries to steal work from me."

The final sentence shocked Kat into answering. "But, Annika, I wasn’t trying to…"

"Good. I’d rather not have to go through the trouble of finding a new assistant. Besides, executions are so inefficient," said Annika, disappearing into her room.

~~*~~

"This is an inefficient use of our time," said Seven.

"Well, what would you suggest?" asked B’Elanna, shortly. "The only data we have on alternate universes is what we have from Kirk and Sisko. Someone has to analyse it."

"This is not analysis," returned the ex-Borg. "This is reading."

"You have to read it to analyse it," said B’Elanna, turning her back on Seven.

"I don’t like this," said Harry, from the other side of B’Elanna’s small office.

"None of us like this, Harry," said B’Elanna. "I’ll try not to fight with her, though."

Harry looked up in confusion. "Huh?"

"What don’t you like, then?" asked B’Elanna.

"This universe they’ve been hauled off to. Look at this!" Harry handed B’Elanna a padd. "It’s barbaric! If I’d just got there sooner…"

"You would have ended up there, too - and then we would have had three people to get back rather than just two."

"But…," began Harry.

"No buts," replied B’Elanna. "Leave me to do the reading, and you go off with Seven and sort out a way to get them back."

"Are you sure?" asked Harry, looking warily at Seven.

"Go - you’ll feel better if you’re doing something useful, and you won’t be moping around here, getting in my way," she finished with a smile, trying to cheer up the dejected Ensign. It didn’t entirely work, but he got up and followed Seven out of B’Elanna’s office and down to astrometrics.

"So, where do we start, Seven?" he asked, still glum. "'Anywhere in time and space' doesn’t narrow it down much."

"We have the readings from your tricorder, Ensign, and those of the tetryon composition of the Oneri artefact. If we integrate that data, it will give us a starting point."

"Okay," said Harry, and called up the readings of the artefact.

"Transferring the tricorder readings," said Seven. An image appeared on the console in front of her, showing a bandwidth of readings gradually narrowing as the integration of data progressed. Seven read off the final range. "We should look within the range of 4700 and 5400 tetryons."

"So, now we have to run tests to see where that leaves us," said Harry. "But how?"

"It is elementary," said Seven, turning to another console. Harry watched her work and waited to be given another task. His glum mood was gradually lifting, as long as he didn’t think too much about where his friends might have ended up. One thing was for certain - strange things happened in mirror universes.

~~*~~

The "meeting" with Chakotay about how he intended to rescue Tilly and Vina had been interesting to say the least. Fired up by Harry’s insults, Kit had stormed onto the rebel ship’s bridge, interrupting a passionate moment between Chakotay and Janeway. For once Kit was oblivious to the altered relationship between the people who were, in her own universe, her commanding officers, and she launched straight into demanding to know Chakotay’s plan.

"How am I going to get them out?" Chakotay repeated. "I really can’t be bothered about that now. We’re due to storm the station any minute now."

"You’re not even going to try?" exclaimed Kit.

"It isn’t as simple as that," said Chakotay. "We have to go ahead with the plan to take the station. We’re just a small cog in that plan - we don’t have a choice."

"Fine," said Kit. "Ignore the fact that this is my best friend. Ignore the fact that we aren’t even from your universe. We’ve already shown how helpful having two versions of one person can be - and I doubt you’re ever going have my alternate."

"McBride," snapped Janeway. "Think about what you’re saying."

Even as second-in-command, Janeway’s influence was immediate. Kit stemmed the flow of her words. Her lawyer’s brain went to work, and she realised what she had said. Just in case she hadn’t, Janeway pointed it out to her.

"We no longer have the advantage of having two versions of Vina - the Alliance is holding them both, which means they know. But you’re right - we are unlikely to ever have Kat on our side. We lost her a long time ago."

Silenced for the moment, Kit turned her back on Chakotay and Janeway and looked out the viewport. The stars always helped her to calm down and think, and these were stars she hadn’t seen for over three years. Taking a deep breath, she turned back.

"You were going to assign me to one of the teams taking the station, weren’t you?" she asked Chakotay.

"Yes," he answered.

"Then let me go with a group that is heading to the promenade. When I get there, I’ll go to the brig and get them out myself."

"Don’t be ridiculous!" said Chakotay. "It took four of us to get Vina out, and that was during a relatively light security protocol. How do you expect to get two of them out all by yourself, in the middle of a firefight?"

"I have to try," said Kit.

It was Chakotay’s turn to stop and think. After a moment or two, Janeway leaned over and whispered into Chakotay’s ear. Chakotay nodded, then whispered back. Eventually, he turned back to Kit. "Go onto the station with B’Elanna’s group," he said. "Once you get to the promenade, I’ll let you know whether we have enough people to spare to help you."

"No arguments," said Janeway, as she saw Kit open her mouth to argue. "That’s what you’re getting, my dear."

~~*~~

Tilly leaned back against the wall, closing her eyes for a moment while she processed what she had just seen. This universe was certainly weird, she decided.

"Okay," she said finally, "I know what’s going on between you and Kat, now what’s going on between you two?"

"Why don’t you ask him?" Vina said, sulking. "He seems to have the answers."

"I never said that," Tom said defensively. "Besides, you wanted to tell your story, as I recall."

Vina glared at him. "What’s there to tell? After that farce of an escape attempt with Kat, I was sent to Cardassia Prime. Met up with this lump. Thought maybe he was different. Next thing I know, he’s vanished in the middle of the night, and following Seska like a tame dog. End of story."

"I can see why there’s abandonment issues here." Tilly commented.

Tom sighed, then stood up and walked over to Vina. "I know you don’t want to hear this, Vina, but it wasn’t as simple as that."

"It never is," Vina said, refusing to look at him.

Tom looked at Tilly, pleading.

Tilly sighed. "I’ll hear your side Tom, even if she won’t."

"What she’s leaving out, is that on her first day on Cardassia Prime, she broke Seska’s nose."

"Really?" Tilly looked impressed. "I always wanted to do that to our Seska, but never had the opportunity."

"As you can imagine, it got her into a lot of trouble. Seska watched her. One night, she came into the sleeping area. She woke me, and pulled a disrupter. I thought she would kill me, as a way of getting back at Vina. Instead, she did something far worse. She aimed the disrupter at Vina’s head, and told me that if I didn’t go with her, do what she wanted me to do, than she would kill Vina. I had no choice."

"There’s always a choice, Tom" Tilly said gently, knowing his response.

"Maybe so, but I would not be responsible for her death. I couldn’t have lived with that. Vina was the only thing I had worth living for. Every time she wanted me to do something, and I refused, she simply said that it would only take a few minutes to have her killed."

Finally, Vina reacted. "You should have let me die, rather than work for her!" she screamed, turning on Tom.

"No, Vina. I wasn’t going to see you hurt." Tom was steadfast in his declaration.

Vina’s face began to contort as if in pain. "I never knew," she half whispered. She collapsed onto the floor, tears streaming down her face. Tom knelt beside her, wrapping his arms around her, as Vina held on to him for dear life.

Tilly looked at the display before her, slightly disturbed. Quickly, she pushed the thoughts from her mind. A different reality.

"Hang on," she said suddenly. "Something doesn’t make sense. If Seska knows Vina, why did she not recognise me when you first came across us? You recognised me."

"I recognised you, but knew you weren’t Vina. You were too" he struggled for a word.

"Clean?" Tilly suggested.

Tom grinned. "Just a bit. Seska was never that close to Vina physically, especially after she hit her, and well, you didn’t really look like her at the time – your hair’s different for starters, and Vina never acts that submissive."

"Nice to know I haven’t lost my touch."

"Eventually, she realised who you were, and got real mad at me for not saying anything. She knew I’d recognise you anywhere. As a result, I got stuck in here. Garak knows our history – how, I don’t know, so he thought it would be amusing to put us in the same cell. When he took me out, it was to question me about Seska."

"Why?"

"She’s been working for the Regent."

"And Kira wants her dead. Does she know that he questioned you?"

Tom snorted. "You really think I’d help her in anyway? If she were dead, I might’ve been able to get out of here, and back to Vina. Seska’s on her last chance with the Regent – that’s why we’re here. What she’s never realised is that I was the reason for half of her failures. Seska’s never been overly bright."

"While this is all good news, we still have to get out of here before anyone decides that we’ve outlived our usefulness."

"That’s not a problem," said a new voice.

The prisoners turned. Kat stood at the forcefield, looking somewhat nervous. Tilly groaned. Not again.

"What do you want?" Vina demanded, regaining some of her equilibrium. She may have gotten over her problems with Tom, Tilly thought, but Kat was a totally different story.

"For once, Vina, shut up and listen. I’m here to help you get out."

Vina stared at her, saying nothing.

"Why should we trust you?" Tom asked.

"Do you have a choice?" Kat asked.

"There’s always a choice," Tilly said.

"Can’t you just accept that I’m here to help?"

"No," said Vina.

Just then, the station was plunged into darkness as Vina’s sabotaging finally took effect. For ten long seconds, the four stood in total darkness. Finally, emergency lighting kicked in, but, conveniently enough, the force field didn’t. Vina stood up, a self satisfied grin on her face, and stepped though the brig opening, Tom following her. She looked pointedly at Kat.

"Like I need your help," she said smugly, leaving the brig.

Tilly followed the others, and looked back at a shock Kat. "Coming?"

~~*~~

Janeway walked into astrometrics, all authority.

"Report," she demanded of Seven and Harry.

"We may have something, Captain," Harry said excitedly. "By using a tetryon pulse, we’ve been able to pick up what we think is their commbadge signal.

Janeway looked sharply at Harry. "Can we contact them?"

"Not yet – we haven’t yet succeeded in sending a transmission through the portal," Seven answered,

"Can you lock onto the signal?"

"Trying now," said Seven, her hands flying over the console.

Static filled the room, as Harry and Seven worked to clear the signal.

"The signals are too far apart from each other," Harry said, "We can only concentrate on one."

"Find the strongest one," Janeway ordered.

They worked for a while longer, desperately trying to isolate the weak signal.

"Got it!" Harry said triumphantly.

There were odd noises, sounds that worried Janeway – sounds of fighting.

" . . .which of you will be death of me," Tilly’s voice suddenly came through. "You lot or the alliance. No, don’t answer that, it was a rhetorical question and does not require an answer. Can we concentrate on finding some weapons perhaps? We need…"

Janeway signalled Harry to stop the transmission.

"I want to concentrate on getting a signal through to them."

"Yes ma’am."

Janeway made her way back to the bridge, where Chakotay was waiting.

"Did you hear?" Janeway asked.

"Yes, Harry patched it through. There’s fighting, but Watson doesn’t seem too concerned," he said.

"Perhaps. Yet if there fighting the alliance . . ." Janeway left the sentence unfinished. "I still want them out of there. Obviously they’ve been separated, and I don’t think that’s a good thing."

"B’Elanna thinks that it will be necessary to send someone through in order to get them back. Their commbadge signal won’t be enough to lock onto."

"Let’s try everything else first – I don’t want to risk anyone unless I have to."

Harry came rushing out of the turbolift. "Captain, I think we can contact them."

"Let’s try it," Janeway said.

Harry moved to his station. "Go ahead Captain."

"Voyager to Lt Watson. This is Captain Janeway, do you copy?"

There was silence, then the static sound that they had heard earlier.

"Janeway to Watson, come in Lieutenant."

"Not now, Captain!" was the unexpected response.

"Lieutenant?"

There was the sound of a phaser blast, very close to Tilly.

"You know Kat," said a voice that was similar to Tilly’s, but not quite, "if you were going to break us out, you could have at least brought weapons."

"So now you want my help?" Was that Kit?

"Vina, maybe…" Tom’s eyes opened wide as her heard his own voice.

"Shut up Paris."

"Children, please! Captain, we’re stuck in the mirror universe, but five years ago – God only knows how. I’ve already got a headache over that. So believe me, Captain, now is really not a good time," Tilly repeated her earlier sentiment. There was the sound of another phaser blast. "And as much I really am glad to hear your voice, Watson out."

Janeway looked at Chakotay, shock written on her face.

~~*~~

When the operations centre of Terok Nor had plunged into darkness, Kira, Garak and Annika had been meeting in the Intendant’s office. It had taken Garak a few minutes to pry the doors open, helped by the bodyguards stationed on the other side, but as soon as they were open far enough, Kira and Annika slid through.

"What is going on?" asked Kira of her ops team, who were doing their best in the total darkness.

"Without the computers up, it’s impossible to tell," reported a female voice. "However it is clear that while there are no lights, no computers, and no turbolifts," - the turbolift had stuck three quarters into the shaft - "we do still have life support."

"Garak!" Kira yelled. Someone bumped into Kira and almost sent her hurtling down the stairs to the lower level.

"I apologise, Intendant," said Garak’s grovelling voice, still breathless from opening the office doors.

"Get down onto the promenade," Kira ordered. "Find out what is going on and who is responsible, and bring them back here - immediately."

"Yes, Intendant," said Garak, and began shuffling back towards the office and the nearest access shaft. From the indignant sounds that issued from that direction, it appeared that Garak had bumped firmly into Annika.

"I’m sorry…"

"Mr Garak, that is not my elbow."

"I’m sorry," he repeated, and shuffled away.

Meanwhile, the Intendant moved carefully around the upper level of ops, holding onto the handrail for direction. She had almost made it to the first console when the pale emergency lights began to work. In the dim light, Kira looked across to the Turbolift and saw a leg come over the edge of the platform. It was followed by a hand, and then a head was hauled into view. It was Seska.

"What the hell is going on here, Intendant?" yelled Seska, before hauling herself completely out of the ‘lift.

Kira regarded the Regent’s spy disdainfully. "We have lost main power," she said. "As you can see, the backups are coming on line, and we should have computer capability soon."

"This is not the way a station ought to run," said Seska, who had now managed to stand up, and was stretching out, as though climbing out of the ‘lift had actually required exertion from the Cardassian. Kira knew otherwise - that feat of acrobatics wouldn’t have hurt Seska at all.

"It isn’t the way this station is run," answered Kira. "Malfunctions are not unknown, Seska."

"They are, however, inconvenient," replied Seska. "And they interfere with the smooth operation of the Alliance."

"I can assure you, these malfunctions will be corrected shortly," said Kira.

"Intendant," said a young, beautiful Betazoid woman. "Internal sensors are coming back online." She hesitated, and Kira looked at her sharply.

"What is it, Staadi?"

"The number of lifesigns on the station has jumped by over two hundred people since the systems failure…"

Staadi had no chance to finish her sentence. Kira ran to the nearest console and activated the comm system. "Intruder alert - rebels aboard the station - execute plan 47 alpha…" The console Kira was using sparked, and she darted away from it before it exploded.

"Communications have been cut, Intendant," said Staadi, uneasily.

"Nooo," said Kira under her breath. Those nearest her edged away.

"Another 'malfunction', Intendant?" asked Seska, her voice smooth and poisonous.

Annika moved up to stand beside Kira.

"We didn’t stop them, after all," said Kira, under her breath.

"It would appear not," replied Annika. "However, revenge will be sweet…"

Kira looked carefully at Annika, then at Seska. "I think we can guarantee that," she said. She raised her voice. "Battle stations," she yelled at the ops crew, who scurried to obey.

~~*~~

"Watson out." Tilly sighed as she realised that Janeway was not going to be happy with her. She turned her attention back to the trio behind her. They were giving her grey hairs.

They were stuck on the promenade, having escaped from the brig, only to find themselves pinned down by a group of Cardassians and Klingons who had managed to get themselves organised relatively quickly.

"Look," Tom was saying, trying to placate Vina, and avoid looking at Kat. "We need weapons, and we need them now."

"There should be a stash in the bar," Vina said, still glaring at Kat.

"Fine, let’s make a dash for it." Tilly was starting to get a little agitated.

One by one, they made the dash across the open promenade to the bar. As they reached the bar, Tilly noticed a pair of Klingons at a table – they seemed to be the bar’s only occupants, and were far too wrapped up in their drinking to notice the new arrivals. Tilly caught fragments of their conversation, including mentions of Shakespeare and someone called Memnok, but decided that she wasn’t even going to try and make sense of it.

"Behind here," said Vina, throwing some bottles aside. Reaching down, she grabbed some disrupters and began handing them out.

Careful not to upset the Klingons, even if they did appear too drunk to fight, they worked their way back to the promenade. Tom and Vina laid down cover fire, as Kat and Tilly stepped out into the line of fire, shooting at the alliance troops on the upper level. Tilly took cover behind a convenient bulkhead, motioning for Kat to get behind her. Tom had already taken out one of the Cardassians, and Vina was also proving to be a good shot, taking out two of the Klingons. Finally, Kat took out the last Cardassian.

"Now can I shoot her?" Vina asked Tilly, pointing her disrupter at Kat.

"No!" Tilly said sharply. "Oh, for heaven’s sake. Vina, Tom, go, find Klingons. Shoot them. Got that?"

Vina glared at Kat again, then nodded. "Fine, Come on Tom." They moved off, disrupters at the ready.

"Now," said Tilly, turning her attention to Kat. "Who are you going to fight?" She drew her weapon level to Kat’s face. "Me? Or the Alliance? Because I have no hesitation in killing you if I have to."

"Something tells me that the Alliance would cause me more trouble than you would."

"Don’t be so sure about that," Tilly responded, her tone deadly. "I’m a thousand times worse than my counterpart."

Before Kat could respond, they were fired upon. They ducked and dived back behind the bulkhead.

"Where did that come from?" Tilly asked.

"No idea," Kat replied.

Tilly looked around the bulkhead. "Upstairs, again. I think we should try and get to ops. That’s where everyone else will be."

"Why bother?" Kat asked. "They’re going to want to kill me anyway."

"Not if I get my way they won’t. Come on."

Tilly stepped out from their questionable shelter, and began to run across the deck. As she did, someone fired at her. Although the shot went wide, it hit some crates behind her, and the resulting explosion sent Tilly flying onto the floor. Groaning, she tried to get up, only to find someone standing on her back. "Don’t move," said a Klingon.

"Dammit – where did you come from?" Tilly demanded, turning her head to get a look at him.

He never answered. As he fell, Tilly saw Kat standing behind him, disrupter in hand.

"Thanks," Tilly said, standing up.

"No problem," Kat replied.

"Where did he come from?"

"Jumped over the railing. Come on, we gotta get moving."

"Agreed. There seem to be a number of Alliance drones converging on our position."

They started to head towards the nearest Jeffries tubes when they were attacked again. Before they could begin to respond, cover fire came from behind them – it was Janeway leading a number of rebels.

"About time you showed up," Tilly called out, hardly being able to resist the idea of having a go at Janeway. "I was beginning to think we’d have to take the station on our own."

"Some things don’t change in alternate realities, Watson, and your smart mouth is obviously one of them." Janeway replied, firing as she did so.

As they made their way to ops, Tilly turned to look for Kat, but she couldn’t see her. There was no time to worry about it though – they were in the middle of a battle.

~~*~~

Armed with the same small disrupter she’d had during the rescue of Vina and a Mek’letH she hoped she wouldn’t have to use, Kit followed B’Elanna and the other rebels out of the airlock. So good was their cover as civilian merchants and traders, headed by B’Elanna, that the group met no resistance at the airlock when they stormed out of their ship. The computer alterations made by Vina had worked, and the group tried to make the most of the lack of light. Before the emergency lighting came back on, they were out of the airlock and halfway to the promenade. They were almost at the promenade before they struck trouble.

A group of about four Cardassian soldiers were slowly making their way towards the promenade, but B’Elanna’s group came up fast behind them. A few disruptor blasts was all it took to take the Cardassians out, without giving them time to contact any of their comrades, had the comm system been running.

"That wasn’t too hard," Kit said quietly to B’Elanna.

"It isn’t over yet, Kit," said Harry, emphasising her name. Kit sighed. How did this sleazoid version of her old friend always get assigned with her? Then she remembered B’Elanna’s comments when Kit and Tilly had arrived, that Janeway was 'sadistic like that some days' when it came to making people who hated each other work together. Great.

"He’s right, you know," said B’Elanna. "This is just the start. Do you know how to use the Mek’letH?"

"Tuvok makes sure we’re all up to date on various fighting techniques," said Kit.

"Well, good luck, because things are going to heat up from here," said B’Elanna. Stepping over the dead Cardassian bodies, she led the way into the corridor that would take them to the promenade.

According to the plans worked out with Smiley O’Brien beforehand, teams led by Janeway, Chakotay, Smiley and Bashir would attack the promenade. Two other groups, led by Tuvok and Dax, were to begin the attack on Ops with the expectation that they would be reinforced after the promenade was secure. As she had been told, Kit hung back as they battled towards the promenade. After the first group of Cardassians, they encountered a larger group, better organised and better defended. Kit got in a few good shots with her disruptor, knocking one Cardassian to his knees. B’Elanna killed him with a single shot. On Kit’s other side, Harry was shooting at the Cardassians with abandon - wasting the power in his weapon, in Kit’s opinion, but she wasn’t about to mention it to him.

"Cover us!" B’Elanna yelled to four of the group, some of whom Kit 'knew' from Voyager. They quickly changed tactics, and kept the Cardassians busy while the other eight, including Kit, B’Elanna and Harry, slipped past the corridor junction to the promenade entrance.

Kit took a deep breath, checked the level of her disruptor, and followed B’Elanna onto the promenade. It could well have been described as chaotic. From the first moment it was obvious, even if she hadn’t known it before, that this fight was going to be combat at close quarters. The Cardassian platoons were commanded by Klingons, and even in this universe, Klingons believed in the Bat’letH more than the disruptor. All around her, the rebels were fighting with the Alliance troops, and most of them were fighting hand-to-hand.

Chakotay’s team had, as expected, emerged alongside Nog’s bar. Kit traced the route from her position to the brig in her mind. It was not going to be easy to get there, but she sure as hell was going to try. Her left hand on the hilt of her Mek’letH, so that she knew exactly where it was when it was needed. Her right hand held her disruptor. B’Elanna looked across at Kit, and the two of them broke from the rest of the group, and began moving towards the brig. Along the walkway to Kit’s left, she saw Smiley O’Brien in a doorway, shooting at Klingons standing on the upper level. Smiley was a good shot, and more than a few Klingons, in the middle of Bat’letH fights with rebels, were shot, and toppled over the railing to fall to the promenade below. Kit shot at the Cardassians directly in front of her, and she and B’Elanna slowly progressed.

Without giving them any time to think, two Klingons appeared in their path. This was the point when Kit realised their advantage - B’Elanna looked like she was on the Klingons’ side, and Kit looked exactly like someone who was on their side. The Klingons hesitated, but Kit and B’Elanna did not. B’Elanna reached behind her and pulled her Bat’letH from its harness on her back. Kit holstered her disruptor and grabbed at her Mek’letH, and stabbed at the Klingon. The Mek’letH blade went into the Klingon’s gut, and he roared. The Klingon swung his Bat’letH at Kit one handed, but she pulled her Mek’letH and her arm out of the way of the awkward motion. Then, suddenly the Klingon had his Bat’letH in both hands, and had raised his arms to bring it down full force on Kit’s head. She seized the opportunity, and the gap in his armour left by her last attempt, and plunged the Mek’letH towards him again. Again she managed to strike deeply, and this time, the Klingon wavered visibly. He staggered and lost hold of his Bat’letH. Kit kicked it away from him. Now they were equal in weaponry, each with a Mek’letH. The Klingon had a distinct advantage in height, but with two deep wounds, he was struggling even with the light Mek’letH. Before Kit had a chance to strike a final blow, B’Elanna, who had dispatched her own adversary far more quickly with the Bat’letH and her own skills in fighting, jabbed at Kit’s opponent with her Bat’letH, causing him to lose balance and fall onto his back. Once he had fallen, which gave her the distance to use the energy weapon, Kit whipped out her disruptor and fired. Even left-handed, her Mek’letH still in her right, she hit him squarely. Kit and B’Elanna barely shared a congratulatory glance before they kept moving towards the brig.

~~*~~

"We’re out of options, captain," Chakotay told Janeway. "The only way we’re going to able to amplify the signal is if we send someone through."

Janeway looked over the data again. There HAD to be another way. But the more she looked at the data, the more she realised that Chakotay was right. She sighed. "All right, but who do we send? We don’t have any idea what’s going on over there."

Chakotay looked her in the eye. "We do have a Klingon."

B’Elanna readily agreed to cross realities, despite the apparent risks. The problem was not knowing exactly where B’Elanna would end up after she was transported.

"We don’t have much of a choice, but to send you to the spot where we last had Tilly’s commbadge signal." Harry said as they entered the transporter room.

"They were under fire," B’Elanna countered. "They wouldn’t still be there."

"Probably not," Harry agreed, "but right now it’s the best we’ve got. Still want to do this?"

"Not much of an option really. The Doc wants to know the cast list. I’ll bring you back some souvenirs."

"Energising."

When she materialised, B’Elanna realised that she was standing in front of a brig. She wasn’t quite sure where – Tilly hadn’t been terribly helpful during the very brief conversation she had had with Voyager. What was obvious was that wherever she was, it was running on emergency power only – the room was dimly lit by flashing walls. Warily, she pulled her phaser as she began to scan the area. Suddenly, she heard footsteps and looked up. There, at the entrance to the brig, was Kit, and herself.

"B’Elanna," Kit said. "It is so good to see you. How did you get here?"

"Long story. We have to get you back."

Kit shook her head. "Not yet. We have to finish up here first. And find Tilly. She was in here."

"Tilly’s not one to stay locked up for long – you know that." B’Elanna was still eying her alternate self warily. "Which way would she be going?"

"Probably to Ops," Kit said. "We’re trying to take over the station."

"On your own?"

"Well, no. It wasn’t even our idea. It’s was Chakotay’s."

B’Elanna looked at her for a long moment. "Is it possible for you two not to get in trouble when we let you out on your own?"

"Apparently not."

"Kit, we should go," said the alternate B’Elanna, keeping watch out the doorway.

"Yeah, okay. Just for the record, two of you is very weird."

"I was feeling that. How do you handle the twin thing?" Lt Torres said.

"You know, ask Tilly when we find her. She thought it was fun."

~~*~~

The Alliance clearly hadn’t expected the rebels to reach the operations centre of Terok Nor - when Tilly and the others burst out of the Jeffries tubes there were only a few Cardassian soldiers among the mostly Bajoran and Betazoid crewmembers manning the stations. Kira, Seven - Annika, Tilly corrected herself - and Seska were standing at the central table, attempting to direct the battle against the rebels without communications or any real knowledge of the battle’s progress. But the emergence into Ops of twenty or thirty rebels made the progress of the Rebel invasion fairly clear.

The rebels had their disruptors at the ready, and the crew at their workstations had their phasers out almost as quickly. In the first volley of fire, before the rebels ran to find some cover, at least two people were hit seriously - one a young dark-haired Betazoid standing behind the science station. As she fell, Tilly recognised Staadi, the Betazoid woman that Tom Paris had first chased, and then later replaced as Voyager’s navigator. Dead in both universes, Tilly thought sadly, then fired at a Cardassian who was stealthily approaching their position.

Within a few minutes the two groups were firmly established - one on either side of Ops. The rebels were still gathered around the entrance to the Jeffries tubes from which they had emerged, while Seska, Annika and Kira, protected by Cardassian guards, were edging their way to the Intendant’s office. The others in the Alliance were crouched by their workstations, firing at the rebels each chance they got.

Tilly, Janeway and Jadzia Dax, a woman from Sisko’s old group, were sheltering together behind a console.

"It would have been a lot better if the original plan had worked," snapped Dax.

"Most things are like that," returned Janeway. "We have to live with what we’ve got. And right now, that’s not much."

Dax peered around the console. "We’ve got to keep them from getting back into the office," she said. "That’s the only Jeffries tube we haven’t got blocked off, yet, and if we let them get into the office, they aren’t going to be trapped - they’re going to be in a stronger position than us."

Tilly ducked as a phaser shot came close to her head.

Dax dodged around the console and fired back. "I can do this on my own," she said to Janeway as she raced across to the next console towards the office.

"If you want to commit suicide," said Janeway, shrugging. "Watson - tell some of the others to go with Dax. She can’t fight them on her own." Janeway edged around the console and began firing, as Tilly slithered back across the floor to some of the others - Harry, Tom, her own counterpart, and a bitter man named Harren, who looked vaguely familiar to Tilly.

"Dax is going around to block Kira and the others from the Intendant’s office. Harry, Vina, Harren; you go with her. Tom - you and I are going to go through the Jeffries tubes and come up inside the office."

To their credit, all of them simply nodded and did what she’d told them. Vina shot her disruptor off a few times while Harren took off, then dodged the return fire herself as she ran to the console Dax was sheltering behind. Tom followed Tilly down into the Jeffries tubes.

"How far do we have to get before we hit a cross tunnel?" Tilly asked.

"Only one level," said Tom. "Then it’s three junctions before we climb back up."

"Good," Tilly replied. "We’ve got to hurry. If Kira makes it into the office, climbing up that Jeffries tube could turn into a rerun of Gallipoli."

When they reached the cross tunnel, they both crawled as quickly as possible along it. Although she should have been saving her breath, Tilly couldn’t help but ask Tom a question. "Did you sort things out with Vina?"

"I’m still alive, aren’t I?" replied Tom.

"For now," said Tilly.

Tom grinned and the two kept crawling. "Here, this is it," he said as they reached another junction.

There was no phaser fire, so Tilly risked sticking her head out to look up and then down the ladder. Nothing - although there was a clanking noise from lower down that Tilly decided to ignore for the time being. "Come on," she said, grasping the rail and starting to climb back up. They reached the end of the ladder quickly, and Tilly reached for the manual release clamp for the bulkhead. Tom got to it first.

"What are you doing?" asked Tilly.

"I’m going out there first," said Tom. "How do we know who’s waiting for us?"

"That’s very noble of you, Tom," said Tilly sarcastically, "but we don’t have time."

Tom clamped the door, and shifted his weight to pull it open. "Hey - I didn’t do the right thing by Vina - give me a chance to do right by you."

Tilly shook her head in confusion. It was the sort of thing the Tom Paris in her universe might just do - but not in the middle of a life or death fight! Then again, maybe for this Tom Paris, life and death was everyday…

The door hissed open, and Tilly and Tom heard phaser fire. Disruptor drawn, Tilly looked through the opening, but the room was empty. She pulled herself through and ran to the door of the office. Tom joined her and they looked out to the scene of Harren, Kim and Janeway advancing on Seska and Annika, while Kira was being protected by a number of Cardassian guards from a vicious attack by Dax and Vina.

"Do we risk it?" said Tom.

"Hell, yeah," replied Tilly, raising her phaser and firing at one of the Cardassians guarding Kira. The shot caught the Cardassian’s arm, and he swivelled to see where the shot came from. He caught a glimpse of Tilly, and immediately shot back, hitting Tilly on the upper arm. The others noticed the new direction of fire. Despite the fact that Kira and her guards were now aware of Tilly and Tom, the Alliance group was now surrounded. With the addition of Tilly and Tom, Kira, Seska, Annika and their guards were fighting against an equal number. The Alliance group had appeared to be on the back foot before Tilly had made her attack - now they were very definitely on the defensive. Two of the guards were shot down, one by Tilly and Tom, the other by Kim and Harren. Tilly hardly had a chance to take in the fighting that was happening around her in ops, but she had the vague impression that the rebels had the upper hand.

Tilly never saw what happened, concentrating on ignoring the pain in her arm, but she heard Tom’s gasp - somehow, Vina had slipped over and fallen at Kira’s feet. Kira aimed her phaser at Tilly’s counterpart. Janeway’s eyes were fixed on Kira’s, watching her expression. Dax, Harren and Kim froze for just a nanosecond, but Annika and Seska had also broken off their fighting to watch the Intendant. An odd look passed over the Intendant’s face. She lowered the phaser, then bent down and picked Vina up off the floor. When Vina was standing, Kira pushed her in the direction of the two remaining guards.

"Hold her," snapped Kira. "Listen to me," she yelled. Most of the fighting had stopped anyway - only one or two of the Alliance crew were still holding their positions. The rebels paid wary attention to the Intendant. "Look at her," Kira called out, pointing at Vina. "I’m going to start with her - and then I’ll go on to the rest of you."

"Take a look around, Intendant," came an insolent voice. Tilly looked away from Kira long enough to see who was speaking - Julian Bashir, a ruffian in this universe. "We’ve beaten you – you’ve lost!"

Kira turned towards Bashir. "Are you willing to sacrifice her for your victory?" she asked, aiming her phaser at Vina, who was now held, upright and struggling furiously, by the two Cardassians. "If you shoot the guards, I will shoot her," said Kira. "If you shoot me, the guards will shoot her - or Annika will."

Annika raised her own weapon and aimed it at Vina. Kira turned back to Vina. "Are you ready to die, my dear?"

Vina was struggling hard, and the guards couldn’t hold her still. Kira lost patience. "Hold her!" she screamed. "Do you want me to shoot you instead?" Kira aimed her phaser at Vina for the third time, but as she did, a Cardassian transporter effect enveloped her, and Kira disappeared from Ops.

Annika and the guards were confused, and in that moment, three phasers fired from behind Tilly and Tom. The two guards crumpled to the floor, and Annika dropped her phaser and clutched at her arm. Tilly and Tom turned around to see an intriguing sight. Three women stood behind them, disruptors drawn. In the middle was Kit, flanked on either side by B’Elanna Torres. One B’Elanna was in full Klingon regalia - the other was in casual dress. "The captain has a bone to pick with you, Watson," said the casually dressed B’Elanna.

"I’ll just bet she does, Lieutenant," replied Tilly as she turned back to the fight. The five in the doorway of the Intendant’s office raced down the steps into the thick of the battle.

When the Cardassian guards had fallen, one had pinned Vina beneath him. Tilly and Kit approached the guards cautiously.

"This one’s unconscious," said Kit. "Til, help me lift him."

Tilly and Kit lifted the Cardassian off Vina, who slid out from under him looking just the slightest bit shaken.

"Ta," she said, shortly. "Now what the hell happened to my disruptor?" Kit handed it to her, and Vina shot at the unconscious Cardassian. "That ought to do it."

"What about the other one?" Tilly asked.

"He’s dead," said Janeway, standing over the other Cardassian body, now sporting a third phaser burn.

"Watch out!" came a shout from the upper level of Ops. "Seska…" the voice - Tuvok’s - didn’t have to say any more. Tilly spun around to see Seska on the upper level behind her, backing towards the Intendant’s office. Tom jumped up the stairs, phaser drawn. "You’re not getting away, Seska," he said, with hatred in his voice.

"Oh, Tommy-boy…" said Seska, pulling a Mek’letH from her belt. "I might actually miss you." Her voice dripped with sarcasm, but before anything could actually register with Tilly, Seska threw the Mek’letH straight at Tom. He dove to the ground, and the knife missed by very little, hitting the edge of a console and clattering to the ground. Seska lashed out at Tom with one arm, but she was out of reach. Before she could move, she was hit in the back by a phaser blast that knocked her to the floor not far from Tom. Tom pulled himself up, grabbed the Mek’letH from where it lay on the ground, and struck at Seska.

"Hey, flyboy," Tilly called out, "I think she’s dead."

"Death’s too good for her," Tom muttered as he looked back at Tilly. "Thanks, Watson."

"Wasn’t me," said Tilly, jerking her head to the left. There, her phaser still drawn, stood Torres - the one dressed in casual clothes, the one from Kit and Tilly’s universe.

Torres turned in confusion to Tilly. "Did I just shoot Seska?" she asked. "And did I shoot Seven before that?" Tilly nodded, and Torres’ face brightened slightly. "It’s weird, but I think I like it…"

Tilly had turned away from Torres when she mentioned Seven, the Australian’s eyes roaming around Ops to find Annika. She was crouched in one of the small stairwells between the lower and upper levels, out of Tilly’s direct line of sight. Annika was the last danger for the rebels. If it were anyone other than her, or possibly Kira, the rebels could have relied on surrender. But not when it was Annika. The rebels firepower was concentrated on Annika’s position, but she was well sheltered.

Just not quite well enough. As Annika leaned out to shoot back, a shot from Chakotay hit her upper chest, just below her left shoulder. She clutched at her shoulder with her other hand, but tried to keep on shooting.

Chakotay shot again, this time hitting Annika squarely in her chest. She toppled from the stairwell and fell to the lower level of Ops. Chakotay shot again, then stopped and looked around.

The few Alliance crewmembers still left alive were being held by Tuvok and Dax. The cavernous room showed the marks of battle; the blood of those who had been killed pooled on the floor, and the walls covered with disruptor scorch marks. Chakotay’s eyes slid back to Annika, who hadn’t moved since Chakotay’s third shot.

"Mr Chakotay," said Tuvok’s calm voice. "I believe we have succeeded in taking Ops."

Tilly let out a whoop. After a moment’s silence, the rest of the rebels followed. The noise was something that could only be imagined. It wasn’t a Starfleet celebration, as the ‘fleeter who began it would have readily admitted, had anyone asked her. And in some ways, it was a lot more fun.

Kit and B’Elanna were cheering loudly, while Lieutenant Torres stood by, still a little confused by her surroundings. Tilly hurried over to the other three.

"How did you do it, Kit?"

"Do what?" asked Kit, a huge grin on her face.

"Arrive just in the nick of time, and manage to shoot Annika and both the Cardassians?" asked Tilly, getting a little impatient with her friend.

"Stroke of good luck," replied Kit. "We were already climbing up from the promenade when you and Tom got into the Jeffries tube above us. And when we got here, Kira had Vina. Then Kira disappeared - and the most sensible thing seemed to be to shoot the guards and Annika." Kit shrugged her shoulders. "Who knows, maybe I’m not just a pretty face after all."

Tilly smirked. "Just remind me never to play Velocity with you - you’re an awfully good shot."

Kit shrugged again. "I blame the adrenalin." She sagged a little against the console behind her, as Tom and Vina approached the group from different directions.

"Oh great," said Tom. "As if two Vina’s and two Kat’s wasn’t enough - now we’ve got two versions of you, too," he said, pointing his chin at B’Elanna, who bristled at the insulting tone in Tom’s voice.

Torres bristled too. "Well, don’t you worry," she responded. "I don’t intend to hang around here longer than I have to."

"And just be glad she was here to save your butt," said B’Elanna. "I know I wouldn’t have bothered."

"What happened to Kira?" interrupted Kit.

"She beamed out," said Vina.

"I know that, but how - why?" asked Kit.

"Escape plan 47 alpha," said Tom. The others all stared at him. "Seska had one too," he said. "All the Alliance hotshots had an escape plan. I’ll bet Garak went off and got a shuttle before we took over the shuttle bays, and then flew up to Ops to beam her out. Of course, her timing couldn’t have been worse - or better, depending on your view," he finished, noting the glares of Vina, Tilly and Kit.

Torres’ attention, however, was elsewhere. "Would you look at that?" she said in amazement. The others all turned to follow her eyes.

"That?" said B’Elanna. "What’s so strange about it?"

"Everything," said Torres, Tilly and Kit in unison, as they watched Chakotay and Janeway kiss passionately in the middle of Ops. They were oblivious to everyone around them, but apart from the three from Voyager, everyone was oblivious to them.

Oblivious to the way that Janeway’s hands clung to Chakotay’s head and shoulder, pulling him down to her. Oblivious to the fact that one of Chakotay’s hands rested firmly on Janeway’s backside, and oblivious to the moans coming from both of them.

Oblivious, however, only to a point. As Torres watched incredulously, and Tilly and Kit each reminded themselves that this universe was very different to their own, Dax spotted Janeway and Chakotay and called out loud enough for the whole room to hear, "Get a room, will you? Spare us!" The room broke into raucous laughter as Janeway and Chakotay disentangled themselves.

"No time for that now," said Chakotay. "Vina - get into the computer system and see if you can repair the damage you did…and some of you need to get down to the Promenade and clean things up down there." He turned back to Janeway and kissed her hungrily again.

Tilly turned away. "I can only take so much before I’m ill," she said with a wry grin.

Chakotay’s announcement prompted some movement among the crowd in Ops. A couple of people began to pick up the bodies, while a few more scrambled down the Jeffries tubes.

"I’d better get those turbolifts working," said Vina, turning to a console and beginning to work.

Kit turned to Torres. "So, what’s the drill?"

"We’re not sure exactly how accurate the transporter modifications are," Torres said. "We need to go back to the beam-in site."

"But you ended up in the brig," said Kit. She narrowed her eyes. "Are you sure you can get us home?"

Torres crossed her arms. "I’d better be able to," she said, "Or it won’t only be Tilly the Captain will want a word with."

"Now, I am not looking forward to that," said Tilly.

Behind her, Vina clenched her fist, and the turbolift in one corner of Ops groaned and creaked, and then slid back into position. "One system up, 347 to go," muttered Vina. Tilly turned to give Vina some help.

Harry Kim had been shifting the bodies of Annika and the Cardassian guards. He handed the last of the guards up to the upper level, the wiped his hands and sauntered over to Kit. He laid a hand on her arm. "Hey there, Kitten - good shot," he said, his trademark leer back on his face, "I guess you can take care of yourself after all." He left his hand on her arm a little too long, and leaned up against her just a little too much.

"Hey, Tilly," said Kit over her shoulder, "You know that free shot you said you’d give me? I think I’ll take it now." Ignoring Tilly’s confusion, Kit swung at Harry’s face and connected solidly. His nose began to trickle with blood.

"I did warn you," said Kit to Harry.

"All right, that’s it," said Tilly, after she’d taken a second to recover. "We’re getting you out of here. You said those lifts were working, right, Vina?" she asked, grabbing Kit’s arm and heading for the turbolift.

Torres followed, shaking her head. "Unbelievable, totally unbelievable," she muttered.

"Hang on, Til," said Kit, before they had reached the lift. "We can’t just leave. Don’t worry," she said, as Tilly made a pretence of tightening her grip, "I won’t hit anyone else. I just want to say thank you."

Tilly nodded. "Yeah, we ought to do that."

Ignoring Harry and his bleeding nose entirely, Kit spoke quickly with Chakotay and Janeway. She turned to B’Elanna. "Don’t do anything stupid," she said, "But don’t let them treat you like an idiot, either. And thank you."

"For what?" asked B’Elanna.

"For being my friend," replied Kit. "Just like always." Despite B’Elanna’s hesitation, Kit reached out and hugged the Klingon woman.

"Thank you," said B’Elanna, quietly, "For showing me I can be something more than just…this."

Tilly had been saying her own goodbyes - to Chakotay and Janeway, to Tom Paris, and to a very wary Vina. Turning away from Harry, to whom she had been giving some good-natured medical advice, she asked, "Does anyone know where Kat is?"

Bashir looked back at Tilly disdainfully. "I don’t particularly care where that traitor is," he said. Behind him, Smiley nodded in agreement.

"Hey - she saved my life, okay?" snapped Tilly. "I wouldn’t mind thanking her for it."

"She’ll be on the promenade, probably," said Kit. "That’s where a lot of the fighting was."

Tilly nodded in agreement. "She was still fighting when we started coming up here." Followed by Lieutenant Torres, Tuvok and B’Elanna, Kit and Tilly hurried into the turbolift. Vina yelled something out to Smiley, then left the console and hurried to catch the ‘lift before it descended to the promenade.

If the scene in Ops had been bad, on the promenade it was worse. It was clear that some of the worst fighting had taken place here. The numbers of rebel and alliance bodies were probably near equal, and because of the close fighting with the Klingons, the bodies were far more cut up than the victims of the ops firefight, who had mostly suffered disruptor burns.

Tilly, Kit and the others picked their way through the bodies on their way to the brig. Kit tried not to look down at the faces, such as they were, but those who had died with their faces upturned seemed to insist on being looked at. She saw their eyes, empty and lifeless, and their slack faces and limp limbs, and she couldn’t wait to get back to Voyager. But first, she wanted to find Kat. In a desperate hope that her counterpart was still alive, she began to call out for her.

~~*~~

Standing at the door of Nog’s bar, propping each other up, were two Klingons. They were as drunk as it was possible for Klingons to get, and they both appeared to have come through the battle unharmed. They surveyed the scene through bleary eyes.

"It appears, my friend," said the taller of the two, "That we have missed a good and honourable battle."

The other Klingon shook his head sadly. "That is unfortunate. Boy!" he yelled over his shoulder into the deserted bar, "Is there any more bloodwine? We must drink to our fallen comrades." Tuvok walked past the two Klingons. "Hey, Vulcan!" called one. "Who was victorious?"

"You were not," said Tuvok. The two Klingons stared at him. "I will send some of our people to take you to the brig. You are obviously not in a condition to cause trouble at this point in time." Tuvok turned away from them.

The shorter Klingon turned to his drinking partner. "He’s laughing at us."

"Don't be a fool - Vulcans do not laugh."

"Vulcans only wish us to believe that they do not laugh," replied his friend. "For my part, I’ve always thought that Vulcans were the biggest practical jokers in the universe."

"Explain," growled the taller of the two.

"They have convinced us they have no sense of humour - no emotions. But really, they are back on Vulcan, laughing at us."

The taller Klingon appeared to consider the proposition. "If what you say is true, then the entire universe has been fooled by them."

"And yet, they do not act as though they are superior to us. They merely laugh."

"They do believe they are superior," said the tall Klingon. "They are not, but they believe they are."

"Perhaps they are superior," said the other. "After all - that Vulcan has managed to defeat this station."

"All alone," agreed his friend, sagely. "Come, my friend - let us drink to our fallen comrades, and discuss the Vulcan mind." The Klingons turned back into the bar, the taller one thumping his friend on the back so hard he almost went flying across the room.

"Boy!" called out one. "Where’s that bloodwine?"

No one answered. Tilly watched the two Klingons as they began to look through the stores behind the bar. In some strange way, she felt sorry for them. But she really liked what they’d said about Vulcans. Behind her, she heard Kit call out, and she turned towards the sound.

~~*~~

Kit had found her. She looked down at the lifeless body, lying across the entrance to what possibly had been a shop before it had been attacked. She sighed as she bent down to check for a pulse that she knew was not there.

"Damn," she said softly.

"She saved my life," Tilly said softly from behind her. "She didn’t have to – but she did."

"I just don’t know what to make of her Til. Do you think I have the capacity to do what she did?"

"I can’t answer that question, Kit. Only you can."

"I suppose." Kit looked at the lifeless eyes, desperately trying to fathom exactly what is was that had made her so different from her counterpart. Tilly had talked of evil twins, but it wasn’t that simple. When push came to shove, what decisions would she make? When she looked up again, Tilly had gone, but Torres stood there.

"I’m sorry, Kit," she said.

"It’s weird. She was working for the other side. Tilly’s counterpart hated her. I can’t get that thought out of my head. What she did. . . "

"Kit, your first thought when I said we had to get back to our universe, was to find Tilly. She knows that. Just because you are capable of something, doesn’t mean you will do it."

"Yeah, I suppose."

Tilly hadn’t meant to leave Kit. She knew her friend needed reassurance right now, but something had caught her eye, and a terrible knot had settled in her stomach as she realised what it was. A Flash of blonde hair, unruly and unkempt. Silently, she made her way to the body, not far from where Kat had fallen.

"Oh, Duncan," she said as she knelt down beside the body. "What were you doing here? How did I miss you?"

Sighing, she reached forward and brush a strand of hair off his face Then she closed his eyes, and closed her own as she whispered a soft prayer.

"Valkryies, take this fallen warrior, chosen of Odin, to his home in Valhalla."

She stood, and turned back, to where Kit and Torres were waiting for her.

~~*~~

Torres walked straight off the transporter platform, then turned around when she realised that both her crewmates were still standing where they’d materialised. "Come on, Watson, McBride," she said. "The Doc is waiting for you in sickbay. He’ll definitely need to check out your hand, Kit."

"What happened?" asked Harry, at the transporter console.

"You don’t want to know," said B’Elanna, noticing that Kit was avoiding Harry’s curious glance.

"Just never, ever, call her 'Kitten'," added Tilly, who had regained some of her equilibrium. "Come on, Kit," she said, reaching out to her friend and leading her down from the platform.

"Who did you see, Tilly?" asked Kit. "On the promenade. You knew him, didn’t you?"

"Yeah - I did," replied Tilly, but she said nothing more between the transporter room and the sickbay.

"Here they are, Doctor," said B’Elanna. "Tom, don’t worry," she added, as the trainee Medic hovered near her, "I’m fine. Despite materialising in the middle of the rebel invasion of Terok Nor."

"Lieutenant McBride is in shock," said the Doctor to Tom, after scanning her briefly. "She also has a hairline fracture of the proximal phalange of the second finger of her right hand, and severe bruising of that hand and her right cheek. There are also some superficial cuts on her upper arms. Been fighting Klingons, Caitlyn?"

"Among other things," said Kit quietly. Tom led her over to a bio-bed and wrapped her in a blanket to stop the shivering that had begun when they entered sickbay. "Can I have a hot drink, Tom?"

"I can’t give you a cup of coffee in your state, Kit, but how about some warm milk with a bit of brandy?"

Kit made a face. "It’s just reaction. I’ll be fine in a few minutes."

"We have to treat the shock - I’ll get that milk for you." Tom went over to the replicator.

The Doctor looked sternly at Tilly. "Lieutenant Watson, minor cuts and abrasions, as well as phaser burns to the upper arm." He picked up a dermal regenerator and began to treat some of Tilly’s cuts.

"What can I say? I was unlucky."

"Now, Lieutenant. Might you enlighten us as to the cast for your latest stage production? We’ve been waiting to find out for quite some time."

"Didn’t I post that before Kit and I went down to the planet? I was sure I did."

"No, Lieutenant, you didn’t."

"Fine then," Tilly shrugged. "Doc - you’re playing Ko-Ko. Tom - you’re playing Nanki-Poo. Kit is playing Yum-Yum, but I think you could have worked that out yourselves. I’m going to gender-swap Pooh-Bah, so that Sue can play that role, and the Delaney twins get Pitti-Sing and Peep-Bo."

"What about the Mikado?" asked B’Elanna.

"Freddy Bristow," replied Tilly.

"Oh?" said the Doctor, "I didn’t think he had the range."

Kit spoke up. "He has a good voice. We can transpose the part."

The Doctor looked over at Kit approvingly. "Back in the land of the communicative, I see, Caitlyn."

"I told Tom it was just reaction. It’s been a rough few days."

"Hey, Kit," said Tilly. "I meant to tell you - great job with those insults. Have you been studying your Shakespeare lately?"

Kit grinned. "You know, that was kind of fun."

"I thought so too," said Tilly. "How about we add an extra scene to the play where Yum-Yum and Katisha are on stage together and get into a cat-fight like that? It could be a lot of fun."

Kit considered, then smiled. "I agree. I think it needs a scene like that - and Katisha and Yum-Yum aren’t on stage together nearly enough."

"That’s settled then."

The doors to the sickbay swished open, and admitted the Captain and Chakotay. "Lieutenant Watson," began Janeway, "I assume you have time to speak to me now?"

Tilly swallowed. "Something tells me I have all the time in the world, Captain. But for the record, I was under heavy fire, while trying to deal with my alternate self, Kit’s alternate self, and Tom’s alternate self, all of whom had homicidal instincts towards each other. And quite possibly towards me."

"I’m looking forward to that report. It’s good to have you three back with us - good work, B’Elanna." Janeway and Chakotay moved over to Kit. "You look like you’ve been through the wars, Lieutenant."

Kit tried very hard to dispel the images of the alternate Janeway and Chakotay that had crowded into her head. "Well, Captain, I got punched in the face by my best friend, fought hand to hand combat with a Klingon and a Cardassian or two, saw the counterparts of people who are dead in this universe, and then I tripped over my own counterpart’s dead body." And that was the least of it, she added to herself.

Janeway nodded understandingly. "Well, you made it through. Ensign Kim has been quite concerned."

"Harry?" asked Kit. "Why?"

B’Elanna spoke up. "He saw you disappear. Being Harry, he blamed himself." B’Elanna, too, was having difficulty with the sight of Chakotay a polite half step behind and to the left of the Captain. She kept her eyes on Kit’s face as she spoke.

"Silly fool," said Tilly, her eyes on the floor. "I’ve been blaming myself enough for the both of us."

Janeway looked curiously at the three women. "Well, I don’t think there’s anyone to be blamed. However, I’ll be looking forward to hearing your reports. Watson, McBride, report to me in my readyroom as soon as the Doctor clears you."

"Aye, Captain," said Tilly.

The moment the door shut behind the two commanding officers, Tilly and Kit burst into laughter. The Doctor had disappeared into his office, but Tom stared at them in surprise. He was even more surprised when B’Elanna began to giggle.

"What was going on between them?" B’Elanna asked through her laughter.

"In the other universe?" asked Kit. "Believe me, you don’t want to know."

"Yes, we do," said Tom, a gleam appearing in his eye.

"Kit," said Tilly, "I’ve got to share this with someone or I’ll never be able to look the Captain in the face again."

"Fine," said Kit, beginning to laugh again. "To be honest, I’m the same."

"Okay, then," said Tilly, but before she could say any more, the Doctor came out of his office.

"All three of you appear healthy and able to leave sickbay. McBride, take it easy for the next day or so, and make sure you discuss your experiences with someone. Watson, I’d tell you to take it easy, but I know very well that you won’t follow my orders."

"You know me too well, Doc," said Tilly, sliding off the Bio-bed. "B’Elanna, Tom - we’ll tell all tonight. Sandrine’s , 2200 hours?" Tom and B’Elanna nodded. "Bring Harry, too. We’ll do what we can to ease his troubled mind," added Tilly. "Come on, Kit. Let’s go face the music."

"Tilly, you will be sensible, won’t you?" pleaded Kit, knowing it was useless.

Tilly just smiled as they left Sickbay and headed towards the bridge.

~~*~~

"It seems like you two were having an adventure." Janeway noted as they sat on the lounge in the ready room.

"You could say that." Tilly agreed.

"It certainly was interesting." Kit commented.

"And you ran into the alternates of yourself, I take it?" Janeway looked interested in the story.

"Yeah – and of half the crew." Kit replied.

"But it was all mixed up." Tilly added.

"Why don’t you start at the beginning?" Chakotay suggested.

As briefly as was possible, Kit and Tilly outlined the story of what had happened to them in the mirror universe. Kit showed some surprise when Tilly explained the history between Tom, Vina and Kat, while Tilly could not help but laugh at Kit’s retelling of her run in with Harry.

"Having to deal with your opposites must have been confusing."

"Yes and no. There were times I felt like I was in a bad production of 'Cabaret'."

"Cabaret?"

"Never mind."

"Different indeed." Chakotay commented.

"Again, yes and no," Tilly said. "There were things that were so different, but some things hardly seemed different."

"Like?" Janeway asked.

"Tuvok. He never changes, regardless of the universe he’s in, I suspect. And you two working together. And my smart mouth, apparently. Well, that was according to the other Janeway."

"Yet Chakotay was in charge of the ship?" Janeway asked, smiling.

"Well, Commander Chakotay was in charge of the ship," Tilly paused. Behind her, Kit paled, knowing exactly what Tilly was going to say next, and dreading the consequences for them both. Tilly continued, oblivious. "But you were definitely in charge of the Commander."


End file.
